issues doe justly befall them because they abhorre to professe that God causeth us to walke in his statutes and to keepe his judgements and doe them The course that Junius took to quiet her conscience who thought she was damned for neglecting to goe to Masse by proving unto her that the Masse was a meere wil-worship was faire and reasonable but the course this Author takes to comfort an afflicted soule I have shewed to be most unreasonable Absolute reprobate hath a different sense according as it is differently applyed If applyed unto damnation or the denyall of glory we utterly deny that either the one is inflicted or glory is denyed absolutely but meerely upon supposition of sinne But applyed to grace we willingly confesse that God doth absolutely give the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance to whom he will according to that of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9. 18. compared with Rom. 11. 30. Where to shew mercy is apparently to bring men unto faith neither can it have any other sense Rom. 9. 18. being set in opposition to hardening and in reference to the objection rising therehence in the words following Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will v. 19. And while this Author denies that faith and repentance are given according to the good pleasure of Gods will which is to give them absolutely he must be driven to confesse that they are given conditionally and if a man will take any comfort therehence he must be acquainted with the condition which yet this Author undertaking the office of consolation upon this ground doth from the first to the last conceale as if he feared to discover the shamefull nakednesse of his cause which I have adventured to display and whereof I desire the indifferent reader would judge So that indeed this discourse is a new snare rather to entangle a poore soule in sadnesse and heavinesse inextricable fowler-like then any true office of consolation where she may escape as a bird out of the first snare of the Fowler by breaking it and delivering her Indeed these grounds of hope and comfort a Minister cannot make use of that holds absolute Reprobation What sober man would expect he should but such a one is never a whit the worse comforter for that For as for these grounds I have already discovered them to be voyd of all truth of all sobriety For if men be not absolutely Reprobated from the grace of faith and of repentance but conditionally For as for the denying of glory or inflicting damnation we utterly deny that God hath decreed that they shall have their course absolutely according to the meere pleasure of his will having made a Law according whereunto he purposeth to proceed therein it became this Author performing the part of a Comforter on this ground to make knowne the condition which he utterly declineth And with all I have shewed the reasons of his carriage thus in Hugger Mugger to wit that their shamefull Tenets might not breake forth and be brought to light We abhorre to say that God gives the grace of faith and repentance according to mens workes Wee abhorre to say that God workes in men the act of believing and repenting provided they will believe and repent or that he workes in them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle of every good worke modovelint But our comsolations proceed as I have shewed in this manner If any man man doth believe and repent we can assure such a one by our doctrine that he is an elect of God this Arminians by their doctrine cannot as who maintaine that a true believer may fall a way from grace and be damned which is to hold the soules of the best children of God upon the rack of feares and terrours and tortures continually and make them walke as it were upon pinacles of the Temple for they have no assurance of stedfastnesse but in their owne wills to keepe them from dropping into Hell fire which burneth under them If men doe not believe and repent we will enquire into the cause of their feares grounds of their apprehentions that they are Reprobates and shew that they have no just cause for such apprehensions whether it be the conscience of their sinne or want of faith that doth affright them For as much as the holiest meÌ„ living before their calling had as great cause to be affrighted as they yet had they thereupon conceived themselves to be Reprobates this had been but an erronious conceit If perhaps it be not the conscience of sinne in generall that affrights them but rather the conscience of some sinne in speciall which they conceive to be a sinne unto death or a sinne against the Holy Ghost which they conceive to be unpardonable we will conferre with them thereabouts and try whether they understand aright the nature of that sinne and endeavour to scatter those mists of illusions in this particular which Satan hath raised desiring to swallow them up in desperation if it doe not prove to be a sinne against the Holy Ghost we will set them in a course to get the spirit of faith and of repentance For albeit God alone can give them yet seeing his Word is a Word of power even a voyce that pearceth the graves we willperswade them to give themselves to be wrought upon by Gods Word and we will pray for them who yet want spirit to pray for themselves And albeit they cannot prepare themselves in a gratious manner to the hearing of Gods Word yet let them come and when they are come let his Word worke yet if forthwith we have not that comfortable experience of Gods goodnesse towards us let us not give over to wait at the lords gates and to give attendance at the posts of his doore Give him leave to be the Master of his own times let us not prescribe unto him We know his course is to call some at one houre of the day some at an other and at the very last hour he calleth some This is the way of consolation that we take We doe not take any such course as this Author at his pleasure obtrudes upon us that God would have all to be saved and that Christ died for all I have allready set forth this Authors collusions in his triple universality of Gods love Christs death and and of the Covenant of grace We rather will exhort him to believe and herein we will take such course as God in his Word hath directed us unto and we will pray unto God that his Word may be as the raine that cometh downe and the snow from Heaven returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth buâ—d hat it may give seed to the sower and bread to him that eateth So his Word may be that goeth out of his mouth it may not returne unto him voyd but accomplish that
cause in man any way moving him either in its own nature or by divine constitution moving him to bestow this grace on any So the Apostle 2 Timoth. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace And indeed we being all found dead in sinne what could be found in one to move God to bestow the life of faith and repentance upon him more then upon another And if any such thing were found in man moving God hereunto then should grace be bestowed according unto works that is in the Fathers phraise as Bellarmine acknowledgeth according unto merits which was condemned 1200 years agoe in the Synod of Palestine and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe unto it otherwise they had condemned him also But as touching the conferring of glory God doth not bestow this on whom he will finding men equall without any moving cause thereunto even in man For though there be no moving cause hereunto in man of its own nature yet there is to be found a moving cause in man by constitution divine whereby God is as it were moved to bestow solvation on some and not on others For God hath made a gracious promise that whosoever beleeveth and repenteth and continueth in faith and repentance unto death shall be saved and whosoever beleeveth not and repenteth not shall be damned So then though men are equall in originall sinne and in naturall corruption and God bestowes faith and repentance on whom of them he will curing their corruption in whom he will yet when he comes to the conferring of glory men are not found equall in morall condition and accordingly God cannot be said on like manner to bestow glory solvation on whō he will For he hath tyed himselfe by his own constitution to bestow solvation on none but such as dye in thestate of grace Yet I confes some say that God bestows solvation on whom he will in as much as he is the author of their faith repentance bestows these graces on whō he will yet certainly there is a different manner in the use of this phraise of bestowing this or that on whom he will For when God bestowes faith and repentance he findes them on whom he will bestow it no better then others But when he comes to the bestowing of glory he findes them on whom he bestowes that farre better them others Now we come to the things decreed in reprobation and these are two 1. The denyall of the grace of regeneration that is of the grace of faith and repentance whereby mans naturall infidelity and impenitency is cured 2. The denyall of glory and the inflicting of damnation The first of these to wit the denyall of grace mentioned is made to whom he will And it must needs be so in ease God gives this grace to whom he will And the Apostle professeth that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardneth whom he will And as God denies this grace to whom he will so did he decree to deny it to whom he will Yet there is a difference considerable For albeit God hardneth whom he will by denying unto them the grace of faith and repentance yet notwithstanding like as it is just with God to inflict damnation upon them for that sinne whether originall or actuall wherein he findes them when the ministry of the word is afforded them so likewise it cannot be denied to be iust with God to leave their infidelity and impenitency wherein he finds them uncured But yet because God hath not made any such constitution namely that whosoever is found in infidelity and impenitency shall be so left and abandoned by him therefore he is properly said as to cure it in whom he will so to leave it uncured in whom he will finding them all equall in originall sinne and consequently lying equally in this their naturall infidelity and impenitencv So wee may iustly say there is no cause at all in man of this difference to wit why God cures infidelity impenitency in one and not in another but it is the meer pleasure of God that is the cause of this difference And if any list to contend hereabouts we shall be willing to entertaine him and conferre our strength of argumentation on this point 2. But as touching the denyall of glory and inflicting of damnation which is the second thing decreed in reprobation there is alwaies found a cause motive yea and meritorious hereof to wit both of the denyall of the one inflicting of the other And God doth not proceed herein according to the meer pleasure of his will that by reason of his own constitution having ordained that whosoever continueth finally in infidelity in profane courses and impenitency shall be damned And albeit on the other side it may be said in some sence as formerly I have shewed that God saves whom he will in as much as he is the author of faith which he bestowes on whom he will yet in no congruous sence can he be said to damne whom he will for as much as he is not the author of sinne as he is the author of faith For every good thing he workes but sinne and the evill thereof he only permits not causeth it And lastly as God doth not damne whom he will but those only whom he finds finally to have persevered in sinne without repentance so neither did he decree to damne or reprobate to damnation whom he will but only those who should be found finally to persevere in sinne without repentance Now let us apply this to the Article we have in hand which is this The moving cause of reprobation is the only will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall and for the explication hereof according to that which hath been formerly delivered We say that reprobation doth signify either a purpose of denying grace as above mentioned or a purpose of inflicting damnation And each may be considered either as touching the act of Gods decree or as touching the things decreed We shew how the Article holds or holds not being differently accommodated 1. As touching the things decreed 1. As touching the deniall of grace We say That God decreed of his meere good pleasure to deny unto some the grace of faith and repentance for the curing of that naturall infidelity and impenitency which is found in all without any motive cause hereunto found in one more then in another 2. As touching the inflicting of Damnation We say That God decreed to inflict damnation on some not of his meer pleasure but meerly for their finall perseverance in sinne without repentance 2. As touching the very act of Gods decree We say Nothing in man could be the cause hereof but the meer pleasure of God as Aquinas professeth it a mad thing to devise in man a cause of divine predestination as touching the act of God predestinating as I have
rather then to an other If Scholars of our Universities use any such phrases it is no other then they find in use among School-divines It is true indeed Jesuites oppose the Dominicans in this This Authour sides with the Jesuites but why doth he not take to taske any one chapter in Alvarez on this point to answer to overthrow their grounds which are no other then the very word of God and cleare reason doth justifie And the ground of the Jesuites in opposing is meerely an invention of their own concerning a certaine knowledge of God called a middle knowledge a vile invention and a palpable untruth and controulable of manifest contradiction For they suppose a thing knowable by God as future before God's will hath passed upon it to make it future being in it's own nature meerly possible and consequently cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now noe cause can be devised hereof with any colour of reason but the will of God For first the cause hereof must be eternall seeing the thing it selfe of the cause whereof we dispute is eternall to wit the fruition of any thing This I say was eternall for it is known with God from all eternity Now there is noe eternall cause to be found but in God alone therefore the cause why things meerly possible in their own nature became future and that from everlasting must be found in God alone Therefore it must either be the will of God or the knowledge of God that did make it future and seing the knowledge of God rather supposeth them to be future then makes them so what remaines but that the will of God must necessarily be the cause hereof Nay consider whether the Jesuites themselves doe not manifest more ingenuity by farre then this boisterous Theologue that thinks to carry all with the blast of his words the resolution of whose arguments generally neither having the word of God for their ground nor any confest principle of reason Whereas not the greatest Angell of God will take upon him such an authoritative manner of discourse For did we grant that God by his Allmighty will did impose any necessity upon our wills Yet Suarez confesseth that so to worke doth neither involve any contradiction nor exceed the Allmighty power of God Whereas we are ready to prove and have already proved that their doctrine of God's concourse without subordination of the second causes to the first implies flat contradiction We say the wills determination of it selfe is the worke of God otherwise faith and love and every gracious act shall not be the worke of God Againe the wills determination of it selfe is no other then the wills operation and this Authour that opposeth us dares not deny the wills opperation to be the worke of God But what School divine can he produce that delivers himselfe in so absurd a manner as to say that God first determines the will and that afterwards the will determines it selfe especially speaking of such actions of the will as are produced by the power of nature The wills determination of it selfe we say is the worke of God moving the creature agreably to the nature thereof that is to be carried necessarily to that which is it's end and appeares to be good in genere convenientis and freely to the meanes which appeare to be good in genere conducentis as fit to pronounce the end intended All confessing Durand excepted that God works the act the question whether he works the act absolutely the will a second agent subordinate unto God as to it's Creatour Or conditionally modo vellimus provided that we will it God the first agent subordinate to the will of the creature This Authour will have it to be wrought by God that is conditionally in dependence upon and expectation of the operation of the creature which we say is most absurd First because thus the first agent is made subordinate to the second agent which is most unaturall Secondly observe a manifest contradiction For the question is about actus volendi the act of willing in man Now if God produce this act upon supposition that man produceth this act then the same act is produced by God upon supposition that it is produced by man If it be produced by man what need is there of God's producing it by way of supplement Thirdly by this meanes the thing is made the condition of it selfe For hereby it is said this act is made upon condition that it doth exist so the selfe same thing shall be before after it selfe 4. Thus man's production of the act shall be noe worke of God which holds off faith and repentance as well as of any naturall act in this Authours opinion Fiftly It is not possible the will can produce the act unlesse God produceth it If then God doth not produce it unlesse the will doth produce it in this case there shall be noe act produced For if I goe not to London unlesse you goe with me nor you goe to London unlesse I goe with you here is no going at all till one saith I say I goe and his resolution carrieth the other with him if the others depend thereupon 6 Whereas to helpe at a dead lift the Jesuiticall doctrine of Scientia media middle knowledge is called in after this manner God foreseing that at such an instant the will of man will produce such an act if God be pleased to concurre and upon this foreknowledâ—e God resolves to concurre This doctrine I have already confounded by shewing the apparent falsity of this supposition For seeing the wills producing such an act at such an instant is a thing merly possible in it's own nature no more future then not future It is impossible that this should passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the conditioÌ„ of a thing future without a cause And noe cause hereof can be but the will of God as I have often proved It followes that the wills producing such an act depends rather upon the will of God to have it produced then on the contrary that Gods producing such an act dependes upon the creatur's will to produce it As for that which followes of the absolute dominion that the will of the creature should have over it's action I presume he meanes independent it sounds more like the voice of the Devill then of a sober Christian Yet it is more then I know that Lucifer himselfe challengeth any such absolute Dominion over his actions unto himselfe If he doth I know noe greater sinne that hee or the creature can be guilty of unlesse in case grosse ignorance doth excuse it To deny God to be the first Agent is to deny his God-head and if hee be primum agens hee must be primum liberum too the first free agent And to make our selves to be prima libera the first free agents what is other
of the creatures future cooperation what the free will will doe in particular This conclusion is held of all those Divines who maintaine that God by his motion or effectuall grace not only morally but efficiently and physically doth cause us to worke that which is good it is proved saith he by all those reasons whereby it hath been formery shewed that God by his decree effectuall motion doth predetermine all second causes even such as are free to worke preserving their liberty and nature 3. The dominion of her act is not first in the power of free will created but in the power and dominion of God especially in respect of acts supernaturall Our meaning is that all dominion actuall use of dominion which the created will hath as causa proxima the next cause or doth exercise over her free acts which she produceth proceedeth from God as from the cheifest first cause efficient ought to be resolved into him as into the first Authour first absolute Lord thereof And the truth is the question of free will is commonly confounded though there is place of momentous distincion For as for free will unto good that is merely Morall and the resolution thereof is according to the resolution in the point of originall sinne But free will unto actions in generall under an appearance of good this is naturall liberty and the resolution thereof depends upon a right understanding of God's naturall providence in governing the world and working with all creatures in their severall kinds such operations as are agreable to their severall conditiōs The first liberty consists in disposing man aright towards his end like as morall vertues tend to this But the second liberty consist's only in the right use of the meanes unto what end soever is projected by us The appearance of good moving herein is only in genere boni conducentis in the kind of good conducing to the end propounded whether that end can be good or evill right or wrong But the appearence of good moving in the former is only summiboni of our cheifest good the enjoying whereof will make us happy But to returne this Authour with whom I deale in present stands for the will of man's absolute dominion over her acts as before he did expresse whereas Alvarez professeth utterly against this Neither doe I blame him for contradicting Alvarez in this but for carrying himselfe like a positive Theologue nor so only but like a peremptory Theologue contenting himselfe to dictate rules to others without all proofe save this that otherwise we make God the Authour of sinne Yet this is not any expresse Argument of his neither but he obtrudes premise upon us which I thinke was never affirmed by any Divines of these dayes unlesse it be by some Libertines against whom none that I know have disputed more effectually then some of those very Divines which here are traduced by him But observe the vile and abominable issue of this Authours doctrine in this particular making man as he is a free creature to be the Lord of his own free act yea and to have the absolute dominion thereof as formerly he did expesse Sect 3. For seing the act of faith of repentance and the like are free acts if liberty cannot be maintained unlesse a man hath the absolute dominion of his own act hence it manifestly followeth that God doth not determine the will to believe to repent or to any good work yet the Scripture professeth that God is he who makes us perfect unto every good worke working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ That it is God who worketh in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure So that if a man should live Methusalch his age and spend that whole time in a gracious conversation yet that God doth worke in him either the will or the deed of one gracious act more it is merely of his good pleasure so little cause have we to presume of perseverance in that which is good by out own strength And againe all this God workes in us for Christ his sake Christ hath deserved even this at the hands of God his father What then is the meaning of this that God should cooperate with us to the will and the deed provided that we will Consider the absurdity of this upon the supposall of the possibility of such a cooperation which yet by evident reason may be demonstrated to be utterly impossible Did Christ merit any thing for the Angells yet doth he not cooperate with them to every act of theirs as well as to any of ours Nay is it possible that any act should exist without God's operation And is it reasonable to subject such a course of Divine providence to the merits of Christ Thus we see whereunto this Authour tends in this discourse of his namely so to maintaine God to be no Authour of sinne as withall to maintaine that he is no Authour of that which is good no not of faith repentance or any gracious act that is freely performed by any creature man or Angell we on the other side desire endeavour so to carry our selves that while we vindicate God from being the Authour of evill we may not therewithall deny him to be the Authour of any thing that is good and gracious which is this Authours course as appeares manifestly in the issue And observe his crafty cariage foxe like Had he dealt upon predestination and the efficacy of grace and therein professed plainly that faith and repentance being free acts every man's will hath an absolute dominion over them and therefore God doth not determine the will thereunto For that were to make God the Authour of faith and repentance how many thousands would have been ready to have flowen in his face and abhorre such abominable doctrine Therefore he baulks that and deales only upon reprobation and here he layeth to our charge that we make God the Authour of sinne by necessitating and determining the will to sinne though his premises herein I have shewen to be most false therefore he maintains that God doth not determine the will so much as to the act whereunto the sinfulnesse accrewes both because man's will is free and because so he should be the Authour of sinne And if once he can make his Reader to swallow this he doubts not but to take him in the point of predestination and grace also and make him wary to take heed of maintaining that God determines or necessitates the will of man to any good act whether it be of faith or of repentance and that for feare of denying man to have the absolute dominion over his will to worke himselfe to faith and repentance at his pleasure and secondly for feare of makeing God the Authour of faith and repentance and every good act Like as by saying that God doth determine or necessitate the will to sinne we make him the Authour of sinne
we acknowledge of predestination both in the way of a meritorious cause on Christs part and in the way of a disposing cause on our part For God we say hath predestinated to bestow upon us both grace and glory for Christs sake where Christ is made a meritorious cause of grace and glory but not of the act of predestination And farther we say that God hath predestinated to bestow glory upon us as a reward of grace as a reward of faith repentance and good workes and to this purpose it is said that God by his grace doth make us meet partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Coloss 1. 12. But as for the bestowing of grace on any we say there is no cause thereof on mans part For he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 9. 18. and he hath called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace 2 Timoth. 1. 9. Now let us apply this to reprobation which is the will of God as well as predestination and if there can be no cause of predestination quoad actum Praedestinantis because there can be no cause of the will of God quoad actum volentis Who seeth not that by the same reason there can be no cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And if it be a mad thing to maintain that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis it must be as mad a thing to maintain that any merits of the creature can be the cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And this doctrine Aquinas applies expresly to Reprobation it selfe upon the 9. Rom. Lect. 2 da at the end of these words Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis but how ex parte actus reprobantis nothing lesse but rather ex parte effectus and what effect not the denying of grace but only as touching the inflicting of punishment thus Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte paenae quae praeparatur reprobatis in quantum scilicet Deus proponit se puniturum malos propter peccata quae à seipsis habent non à Deo And farther we prove this both by cleare evidence of Scripture and cleare evidence of reason and thirdly by as cleare a representation of their infatuation that oppose this doctrine and particularly of the Author of this discourse First by cleare evidence of Scripture Rom. 9. 11. Where the Apostle proves that Election stands not of good works by an argument drawn from the circumstance of the time when that Oracle The elder shall serve the younger was delivered together with the present condition of Jacob and Esau answerable to that time thus Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger Therefore the purpose of God according to Election stands not of good workes Now look by what strength of reason the Apostle concludes this of Election by the same strength of argumentation may I conclude of reprobation in proportion thus Before the Children were borne or had done Good or Evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger therefore the purpose of God according to reprobation stands not of evill workes that is like as good workes are not the cause of Election so evill workes are not the cause of Reprobation to wit quoad actum reprobantis as touching the very act and eternall decree of God it selfe Secondly observe I pray whether my reason be not as cleare If God upon the foresight of sin doth ordain a man unto damnation thus I am content to propose it in the most rigorous manner then this is done either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God Not by necessity of nature as it is confessed and the cause is evident for undoubtedly he could annihilate them and so he can the holiest creature that lives as all sides confesse Therefore it must be by the constitution of God but neither can this hold For if so then God did constitute that is ordaine that upon the foresight of sin he would ordaine men unto damnation Where observe that the act of divine ordination is made the object of divine ordination as much as to say he did ordaine to ordaine or he did decree to decree Whereas the objects of Gods decrees are alwaies things temporall as for example We say well God did decree to create the world to make man out of the earth to send Christ into the World to preserve us to redeeme us sanctify us save us But Gods ordination or decree is an act eternall and cannot be the object of his decree or ordination I challenge all the Powers of darknes to answer this and to vindicate the Tenent which I impugne from that absurdity which I charge upon it if they can O but some will say it 's very harsh to say that God of his meer pleasure doth ordain men unto damnation I am content to doe my endeavour to remove this scandall out of the way of honest hearts yea and out of the way of others also First therefore consider is it fit to resist the evidence of divine truth because it is harsh to mens affections Secondly Wherein consists this harshnesse Is it in this that nothing is the cause of Gods decree and will nothing temper the harshnes of it unles a thing temporall as sinne be made the cause of Gods will which is eternall and even God himselfe But let us deale plainly and tell me in truth whether the harshnes doth not consist in this That the meer pleasure of Gods will seems to be made the cause not of Gods decree only but of damnation also as if God did damne men not for sin but of his meer pleasure And this I confesse is wondrous harsh and yet no more harsh then it is untrue though in this jugling world things are so carried by some who will both shuffle and cutt and deale themselves as if we made God of meer pleasure to damne men and not for sin which is a thing utterly impossible damnation being such a notion as hath essentiall reference unto sin But if God damne no man but for sinne and decreed to damne no man but for sinne what if the meer pleasure of God be the cause of this decree what harshnes I say is this As for example Zimri or Cosby perished in their incestuous act and gave up both lust and ghost together so going as it were quick to Hell never fearing the judgements of God untill they felt them If we say God decreed they should be cut off in this sin of theirs and be damned for it What hatshnes I pray in this though God made this decree of meer pleasure For is it not manifest he did For could he not if it had pleased him have caused them to outlive this sin of theirs and given them space for repentance and
from sin as I think no wise man will deny surely it is in his power to refuse to keep any reasonable creature from sin For certainly though Adam were created in innocence yet he preserv'd him not in innocency but left him to himselfe having exposed him to Satans temptations The Angells had no Satan to tempt them God preserved the elect Angells from sinning and how let Austin speak in this particular either by giving them majorem amoris divini mensuram in their creation then their fellowes or by giving them amplius adjutorium after their creation And in particular concerning Adam the same Author professeth that God gave him Posse si voluit but he gave him not Velle quod potuit And dares any man deny that it is in the power of God by the deniall of his efficacious grace to make way for the entring of sin into the World and that wonderfull work of the incarnation of the sonne of God and the redemption of the World by him as also for the manifestation of his own glory both in the way mercy by the pardoning of sin and in the way of justice by the punishing of sin Let Arminius be heard in this Who confesseth that God in the storehouse of his wisdome and power hath not only sufficient impediments of sin but efficacious also by the use whereof sinne would certainly and infallibly be hindered His words are these Praeter illa sufficientia impedimenta etiam efficacia habet in suo sapientiae potentiae thesauro quibus productis certô infallibiliter peccatum impediretur Which if it be true certainly it was as true as touching the hindering of the sinne of Adam as of hindering any mans sinne else from the time of Adams fall And as certain it is that God would not make use of any of these impediments though it is apparent these impediments Arminius speakes of are of such a nature as whereby sinne would be hindered without any prejudice to the freedome of mans will as appears by all his instances following of this kind shewing how God did efficaciously hinder the sinnes of many And indeed it is evident in reason and such as cannot be denied unlesse a man will say that whatsoever course had been taken by God to preserve him from sinne without prejudice to the freedome of his will yet neverthelesse he would have sinned which is in so high a degree absurd as manifestly to contradict the very light of nature For seeing Adam in the state of innocency was naturally indifferent as well to stand as to fall and morally more inclined to stand then to fall for as much as God had made him good even in respect of this indifferency it cannot be said that upon every occasion or temptation unto sin he would have yeelded thereunto For such a condition is not an indifferent condition Nay Philosophers ackowledge that of three sorts of contingents one sort is of such which they call Contingentia aequalitèr that is such as fall out as often one way as another And what are these surely all such and none but such as are subject to a mans free will And even of Esau borne in sin so was not Adam Austin thinks it strange that any man should deny but that there was a course to have called him as effectually as he called Jacob had he been pleased to have used it Now hereby it manifestly appears that God hath no need of any provoking courses exasperating courses to draw them unto sinne let him but withold those efficacious impediments of sin which are in the store-house of his wisdome and power as Arminius acknowledgeth and sinne hereupon shall enter For the permission of sinne by Arminius his distinction of it is the suspension of that efficiency whereupon it would be avoided And if it were a safe course to judge of what becometh God by that which becometh man we should conclude even of permission of sin that like as it becometh not us to permit sinne if it lieth in our power to hinder it in the same manner it becometh not God to permit any sinne seeing it lyeth in his power to hinder it Sed judicia ejus saith Austin multa abyssus Nos certè si eos in quos nobis potestas est ante oculos nostros perpetrare scelera permittamus rei cum ipsis erimus quà m verò innumerabilia ille permittit fieri ante oculos suos quae utique si voluisset nulla ratione permitteret In the 2 Kings 2. 26 27. we read of a desperate course of the King of Moab that finding the battail to be sore against him first tryed with 700 men to break through to the King of Edom but when he could not he took his eldest sonne that should have raigned in his steed and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall the sight of which barbarous part of his strook griefe into the hearts of the children of Israel so that they departed from him and returned into their country What therefore shall we condemne God for sending Abraham to sacrifice his sonne his only sonne his sonne Isaac In the 16 Iudg. we read a strange story of Sampson whose faith is commended Hebr. 11. For there we read how he dyes his heart flaming with desire of revenge and yet with great devotion prayes unto God to assist him that he might be avenged of the Philistins for his two eyes O Lord God I pray thee think upon mee O God I beseech thee strengthen me at this time only that I may be at once avenged of the Philistins for my two eyes And again Let me loose my life with the Philistins he bowed himselfe with all his might and the house fell upon the Princes and upon the people that were therein so that the men that he slew at his death were more then they which he had slaine in his life For both the house it selfe was full and upon the roofe of it there were about 3000 men and women Here is a strange massacre wrought by Sampson an Israelite upon the Philistins at that time when the Israelites were in subjection to the Philistins who were their Lords as sometimes Pharaoh was For the men of Judah admonished him when they came up to the rock Etam to bind Sampson Knowest thou not say they that the Philistins are rulers over us Wherefore then hast thou done thus unto us to wit in taking such courses as might well provoke the Philistins to root out the Israelites Yet neverthelesse he comes sparkling with zeale to destroy many thousands of them yea the Princes with the rest and well pleas'd to destroy himselfe with them to be avenged of them for his two eyes And how could this be done by him without some speciall propheticall instigation animation received from the spirit of God we know not And who doubts but that God animating him hereunto all this was lawfull which without Gods warrant could be
Pelagianos ut in omnibus aetatibus perdita requiratur humana natura 2. Manichaei carnis concupiscentiam non tanquam accidens vitium sed tanquam naturam ab aeternitate malam vituperant Pelagiani eam tanquam nullum vitium sed naturale sit bonum insuper laudant Catholica utrosque redarguit Manichaeis dicens non natura sed vitium est Pelagianis dicens Non à Patre sed ex mundo est ut eam velut malam valetudinem sanari utrâ—que permittant desinendo illi tanquam insanabilem credere isti tanquam laudabilem praedicare 3. Manichaei negant homini bono ex libro arbitrio fuisse initium mali Pelagiani dicunt etiam hominem malum sufficienter habere liberum arbitrium ad faciendum praeceptum bonum Catholica utrosque redarguit illis dicens Fecit Deus hominem rectum istis dicens si vos Filius liberaverit verè liberi eritis 4. Manichaei dicunt animam particulam Dei naturae malae commixtione habere peccatum Pelagiani dicunt animam justam non quidem particulam sed creaturam Dei etiam in istâ corruptibili vitâ non habere peccatum Catholica utrosque redarguit Manichaeis dicens Aut facile arborem bonam fructum ejus bonum aut facile arborem malam fructum ejus malum Pelagianis dicens si dixerimus quia non habemus peccatum nosmetipsos seducimus His morbis inter se contrariis Manichaei Pelagianique confligunt dissimili voluntate simili vanitate seperati opinione diversâ sed propinqui mente perversâ Iam verò gratiam Christi simul oppugnant Baptismum ejus simul evacuant Carnem ejus simul inhonorant sed etiam hoc modis causisque diversis Nam Manichaei meritis naturae bonae Pelagiani autem meritis voluntatis bonae perhibent divinitus subveniri Illi dicunt debet hoc Deus laboribus membrorum suorum Isti dicunt debet hoc virtutibus suorum Utrisque ergò merces non imputatur secundum gratiam sed secundum debitum But come we to the consideration of the particulars delivered by this Author 1. As touching the opinion of the Stoicks and Manichees 2. As touching the Parallell he makes between their opinion and ours in the poynt of Predestination 1. The Chaldeans and Astrologers did altogether place Fate in the influencies of the starres and because those glorious bodies did infatuate the World with a shew of Divinity which the Lord Laboured to prevent in the Jewes Deutr. 4. no marvail if the vulgar sort did acknowledge no other fate but that As Austin saith De Civit. Dei lib. 5. cap. 1. Id Fatum homines quando audiunt usitatâ loquendi confuetudine non intelligunt nisi vim positionis syderum qualis est quando quis nascitur sive concipitur But I doe not find that the Stoicks did thus distinguish but by their Series Causarum they comprehended all causes caelestiall or sublunary Ramus indeed conceived such a difference between Possidonius and Chrysippus both Stoicks but Turnebus makes bold to tell him that herein he erred Quod autem Possidonium dicis studio Astrologiae oblectatum Fatum syderibus attribuisse in eo peccas quod aliam ejus quam Chrysippi sententiam putas nec eam totam complecteris Nam si in simul aegrotantibus fratribus causam esse dicebat in syderum caeli constitutione affectione non tamen idcircò in aliis rebus Fatum non esse judicabat Nay he professeth that according to all the Stoicks Fatum was God himselfe and nature and that by Fatum they understood omnem naturae contagionem which was Cicero's phrase As indeed the whole frame of nature is knit together per contactum which Cicero called Naturae contagionem And he proves as much of Possidonius out of Cicero De Divinatione For Quintus therein professing according to the opinion of Possidonius that all force and course of Divination was derived from God from destiny and from nature he concludes therehence that all kind of artificiall and naturall Divination were in his opinion comprehended under the notion of Fate And out of Cicero's second Book of Divination shewes that whereas Possidonius his opinion was Vim quandam sentientem divinam quae tota confusa sit mundo ad hostiam deligendam ducere He concludes thus Satis ut opinor significat Possidonium non in syderibus tantum Fatum posuisse sed per omnem mundi continuationem naturae conjunctionem ordinem seriemque causarum permanare credidisse Idem Possidonius saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scripserat quod non fecisset si in syderibus tantum Fatum esse sensisset And like as Possidonius did not insist only in the starres for the confirmation of Fate so neither did Chrysippus in inferior causes Necessitatem nature acutus interpres he taxeth Ramus ad Chrysippum pertinere astrorum ad Possidonium credidisti errorem errore cumulasti Nam nec Possidonius in solis astris Fatum ponebat sed in totâ naturae contagione ut suprà docui Chrysippus in eâdem naturae contagione quâ etiam astra continentur quod non intellexisti And that he proves out of Cicero answering Chrysippus in this manner Ut igitur ad quasdam res natura loci pertinet ad quasdam autem nihil sie affectio astrorum valeat sivis ad quasdam res ad omnes certè non valebit Chrysippum enim alloquitur saith Turnebus ut vel puero notum est ut me tui pudeat pigeat qui Possidonium intelligis Thus he disciplines Ramus and proceed farther saying Chrysippum autem in astrorum constitutione affectione Fatum posuisse audi ex Cicerone si quis verbi causâ oriente Caniculâ natus est is in mari non morietur Vigila Chrysippe c. Nihil istud argumentum thus Turnebus concludes herehence nisi etiam in astris Fatum poneret So that the foure opinions concerning Fate related by Ludovicus Vives in 4. lib. August De Civit. Dei cap. 8. and that out of Picus Mirandula lib. 2. Contra Astrologos The first whereof is said to be Nature The second a Series of causes necessary knit together the Third the Starres the Fourth the Execution of Divine Decree I say all these make but one Fatum with the Stoicks yea with all the Stoicks in the judgement of Turnebus And Austin De Civit. Dei lib. 5. cap. 8. expresly includes the will of God within that Series of causes which was accounted Fatum in the Opinion of the Stoicks and upon that ground approves of it As for necessitation by reason of disposition of the Matter Prime whereby things were brought to passe in despite of God I find no such thing neither in Austin nor in those that comment upon him Ludovicus Vives and Coqueus nor in Ramus or Turnebus but rather to the contrary in Ludovicus Vives who distinguisheth out of the opinion of Plato as touching one God whom he made Principem
and that after the same way For sometimes the Doctor pleads for a revocable condition of the divine decrees For the Pope never bindes his hands by any Grant he makes and why should God bind his hands by any decree he makes especially considering that God hath more wisdome and goodnesse to manage such authority then the Pope But if it be dishonesty for a man to take liberty to break his promises I pray what goodnesse is required to the managing thereof Yet that Doctor keeps his course in discoursing of an impotent immutability and saith it is indecent to attribute any such immutability unto God whereas immutability is a notion which connotates no power of doing at all but only a power of suffering and formally denotes the negation thereof And what madnesse is it to say that the lesse power God hath of receiving change the lesse power he hath of working Yet this is not all He hath another device answerable to the latter course of this Author and that is that Nothing concerning any mans salvation or damnation is determined by God before he is borne or before his death and to that purpose he saith that God is still decreeing as if hitherto he had not decreed ought And would you know of whom he learned this Rogers in his exposition of the Articles of the Church of England a Book dedicated to Arch-Bishop Bancroft allowed by the lawfull authority of the Church of England writing upon the 17 th Article and delivering his second proposition collected therehence in this forme Predestination hath been from everlasting when he comes to set forth the Adversaries of this truth Those wrangling Sophisters saith he are deceived who because God is not included within the compasse of any time but hath all things to come as present before his eyes doe say that God he did not in the time long agoe past only but still in the time present likewise doth Predestinate 2. Consider we the reason he gives for so shamefull an assertion as touching the alterable condition of Gods decrees or as touching the ends of men as yet undetermined by God In vaine saith he is freedome in the actions if the end which they drive at be determined Here First we have a wild phrase Freedome in actions For by freedome we understand an active power of working after a certain manner which power is found in the will not in the actions Secondly a bare avouching that unlesse God as yet hath left the ends of men living undetermined or in case he hath determined them unlesse these determinations of his be alterable Freedome of Will is given in vaine as much as to say unlesse we admit of such monstrous assertions the freedome of mans Will is in vaine But we say this consequence is most untrue and we give our reason for it For whether salvation or damnation be the ends he meaneth no creature is capable of either but only creatures rationall and the one being bestowed by way of reward and the other inflicted by way of punishment each of these presupposeth freedome of Will in the parties thus proceeded with Or whether the ends are the manifestation of Gods vindicative and remunerative justice for the same reason now specified each of these doth necessarily bespeak freedome of Will in them who after either way are made uselesse on whom the glory of God is to be manifested When he addes saying Omnis actio is propter sinem This altogether concernes the ends intended and proposed by the author of the action nothing concernes the ends proposed by another And the ends of a man proposed by himselfe are either supreame or intermediate still every action deliberate for so alone it holds tends to one end or other which man himselfe intends The supream end of every one is his chief good but as touching that wherein this consists all doe not agree Some place it in wealth some in pleasure some in honour some in virtuous life By the light of Grace we are taught that as we are creatures our end which we should propose unto our selves is the glorifying of God our Creator though there were neither reward nor punishment But if there be a glorious reward to be gotten by it and a dreadfull punishment to be suffered of them that seek the satisfying of their own lusts and not the glory of God this is a double hedge unto us to keep us in the good waies of the Lord and to move us to make strait stepps unto him but surely the end of the creature still is the glorifying or God that made him God makes it his care to provide for us let our care be to glorify him for seeing all things are from him therefore all things must be for him and seeing we are reasonable creatures and know this we must goe on in conforming our selves hereunto and seeking his glory And albeit this Author may conceive that salvation is the end he aimes at yet can I not beleeve that he makes damnation the end that any man drives at Nothing being fit to be a mans end but that which hath rationem Boni which surely damnation hath not 3. His Annotations as touching the three Opinions proposed by him come to be considered in the next place and these are two 1. The Substance and Formality of them which as he saith is an unavoidablenesse of mens actions and ends whatsoever they be And in this he saith all of them agree all holding that in all things undeclinable Fates and insuperable necessity doe domincere Whereunto I answer that this is contradictory to his own premises as touching the third Opinion For against the Maintainers of Gods absolute decree he did formerly object only disjunctively that either all mens actions were absolutely necessary that is unavoidable or at least that mens ends were unavoidable which is to inferre that but one of them is avoidable but here he professeth as upon that which he had formerly delivered that by the Third Opinion both mens actions and their ends were unavoidable And as for the second Opinion of the Manichees I find no mention of the unavoidable condition either of mans actions or ends at all in the Relation thereof by those who have most studied their History And as for the Stoicks I no where find that they denied the liberty of mens will or that it was in mans power either to forbeare the doing of that he doth or to doe the things he forbears to doe but rather the contrary that they made choyce some of them at least though Austin delivers it without any such distinction to exempt the wills of men from subjection unto Fate though I deny not but that many vain discourses might be differently entertained by them having no better light to guide them then the light of nature and wanting that which God hath in great mercy vouchsafed unto us the light of grace and that in very plentifull manner Much lesse doe I find by them that any
weake one 1. Because that they that understand it of the Elect understand it so in no other sense but as I have expounded it 2. If I should say of the twelve Apostles Judas excluded and Matthias substituted in his roome that God so loved them that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever of them believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life who can deny but that this was a truth accommodated unto them but will it here hence follow that among those Apostles some were believers some unbelievers Suppose all the World were Elect and it pleased God to give them all Faith should this Doctrine be the lesse true whosoever believes shall be saved yet in this case it would not follow that amongst the World of men some were believers and some unbelievers But whereas he faines that some of our Divines should interpret the word World here of Believers that is such a fiction as is incredible I come to the fourth DISCOURSE SECT IV. 1. TImoth 2. 4. Who would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of his truth In these words the Apostle delivers two things 1. That it is Gods will that all men should obtain an happy end viz. Salvation 2. That it is his will also that they should use and enjoy the means which is the knowledge of his truth that so they might obtain the end the salvation of their soules there is no let in God but that all men may believe and be saved and therefore there is no absolute will that many thousands of men shall never believe nor be saved Two answers are usually returned which give me little satisfaction The first is that by All we are to understand all sorts and not every particular man in every sort and condition It is true that all is sometimes so used in Scripture but I believe not here for the very Text shewes that we are to understand by it the Individualls and not the kindes v. 1. There is a duty enjoyned I will that prayers and supplications be made for all men and in this verse the motive is annexed God will have all to be saved as if he should have said our charity must reach to all whom God extends his love to God will have all to be saved therefore we must pray for all Now in the duty All signifies every man for no man though wicked and prophane is to be excluded from our prayers pray for them saith our Saviour that persecute you And pray saith the Apostle here for Kings and all that are in Authority men in those daies though the greatest yet the worst yea very Wolves and Lyons and Bears of the Church pray for them and if for them then for any other thus in the duty it signifies every man and if it doe so in the duty it must have the same extent in the motive too or else the motive will not reach home nor have strength enough to enforce the duty The second answer is that God will have all to be saved with his revealed will have Millions to be damned with his secret will If this answer stand then in my understanding these inconveniences will follow 1. That Gods words which are his revealed will are not interpretations of his mind and meaning and by consequence are not true for Oratio quae non est mentis significatio simulatio est 2. That there are two contrary willes in God a secret will that many Sonnes of Adam shall irrevocably be damned and a revealed will that all the Sonnes of Adam may be saved 3. That one of Gods wills must needs be bad either the secret will or the revealed for of contraries if the one be good the other is bad and so of Gods contrary wills if the one be good the other must needs be bad for malum is contrarium bono TWISSE Consideration THe Conclusion here is very loose the Arguments being thus It is Gods will that all should be saved therefore there is no absolute will that many thousands of men shall never believe nor be saved and the vanity of this consequence I will shew more waies then one 1. The Apostle doth not say It is the absolute will of God that all men shall be saved nay Vossius interprets this place and that according to the meaning of the Ancients of voluntas conditionata a conditionall will in God not absolute and he gives instance of it thus It is the will of God that all shall be saved in case they believe in Christ Now albeit it be the conditionall will of God that all and every one shall be saved in case they believe yet this hinders not but that it may be the absolute will of God that many thousands of men shall never be saved as in case his will be to deny the grace of faith and repentance to many thousands as it is cleare and undeniable that he doth Nay the Remonstrants themselves and particularly an Arminian that I had to doe withall lately spared not to professe that Election is absolute if so then reprobation also is absolute and I doubt not but that they will all confesse that howbeit Gods will be that all should be saved yet thousands are reprobated 2. Suppose the Apostle had said it is the absolute will of God that all men shall be saved yet I say it followes not herehence but that by the absolute will of God many might faile of falvation for it was the absolute will of God that every foure footed beast should be represented to Peter let downe unto him in a linnen vessell yet neverthelesse it might be that many thousands were not represented to him and that by the will of God Thus having discovered the vanity of this conclusion I will now proceed to demonstrate that this place cannot be understood of Gods will in proper speech viz. willing all and every one to be saved 1. Like as it is impossible that a man at the same time should be saved and damned so it is impossible that God should at the same time and duration both will to save and will to damne the same man But God from everlasting did will to damne many thousands therefore it was impossible that from everlasting he should will to save them 2. If it be Gods will that all and every one shall be saved then all and every one shall be saved For who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19. And for confirmation hereof we find in our selves that if we will doe ought we doe it if we can and if we doe not ought the reason is either because we have no will to doe it or because we have no power to doe it In like sort that God doth not save many thousands the reason must be either because he will not or because he cannot not because he will not for these professe that it is his will to save all and every one Therefore the reason why he doth not save all
must needs be because he cannot save them this was Austins argument 1200 years agoe Enchirid. cap. 96. and 97. handling this very place of the Apostle 3. If God did from everlasting will the salvation of all and every one then either at this day he doth continue to will the salvation of all and every one and shall continue for ever to will it or no if he doth continue to will it and ever shall then say that God doth will the salvation of the damned both Men and Divells albeit it is well known he damnes them If he doth not continue to will it then is God of a changeable nature directly contrary to the word of God as well as to manifest reason With him saith Iames is no variablenesse nor shadow of change I the Lord am not changed Mal. 3. 6. As for that which he thrusts in to help make weight saying that there is no let in God but that all men may believe and be saved this is a most improper speech for no man is said in proper speech to be let from doing ought but upon presupposition that he would doe it now we utterly deny that God hindreth any man from believing and repenting whose will is disposed to believe and repent But seeing all men have infidelity and hardnesse of heart naturall unto them as a fruit of that corruption wherein all are borne we deny that God câ—â—es it in all but only in whom he will according to that of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And our Saviour upon the same ground is bold to tell the Jewes saying Ye therefore heare not my words that is believe them not because ye are not of God 2. The first exposition here mentioned was given by Austin many hundred years agoe Enchirid. cap. 103. and he proves this his interpretation of the word all by the congruity of it to Scripture phrase in other places as where it is said of the Pharises that they tythe every herbe his words are these Iâ—to locutiâ—nis modo Dominus usus est in Evangelio ubi ait Phariseis Decimatis mentham rutam omne olus neque enim Pharisei quaecunque aliena omnium per omnes terras alienigenarum omnium olera decimabant Sicut ergo hic omne olus omne olerum genus it a illic omnes homines omne hominum genus intelligere possumus yet see the ingenuity of this great light of the Church of God for forthwith he gives leave to devise any other convenient interpretation provided that we doe not violate Gods omnipotency by saying that any thing that God would have brought to passe is not brought to passe his words are these Et quocunque alio modo intelligi potest dum tamen credere no cogamur aliquid omnipotentem Deum noluisse fieri factumque non esse qui sine ullis ambagibus si in caelo terra sicut veritas cantat omnia quaecunque voluit fecit profecto facere noluit quaecunque non fecit This interpretation is generally received by our Divines because of the congruity thereof to the Text it selfe for as much as the Apostle having first admonished them in the generall to pray for all forthwith he descends to specialls as Vossius acknowledgeth Generi speciem subjicit now look in what sort the Species is to be understood after the same manner is the Generall to be understood Now the Specialls mentioned are certain sorts or conditions of men as Kings and such as are in authority therefore the generall all must in like manner be understood of all sorts and all conditions of men upon this consideration also it was that Austin did insist in the place before alleadged Praeceperat saith he Apostolus ut or aretur pro singulis hominibus specialiter addiderat pro Regibus iis qui in sublimitate sunt qui putari poterant fastu superbia seculari a fidei Christianae humilitate abhorrere Proinde dicens hoc enim bonum est coram salvatore nostro Deo id est ut etiam pro talibus oretur statim ut desperationem tolleret addit qui omnes homines vult salves fieri in agnitionem veritatis venire Hoc quippe Deus bonum judicavit ut orationibus humilium dignaretur praestare salutem sublimium Now I come to consider what this Author hath to say against this exposition for he gives us very gravely to understand that it gives him little satisfaction we are therefore to expect some better satisfaction from him It is true that all is so used in Scripture not only some times but very frequently let him come to instance in his sense we are ready to instance with him for ours But the Text saith he shewes we are to understand the individualls and not the kindes Where first I doubt his ignorance in understanding the distinction aright is his best ground of opposition When Austin urgeth for his interpretation that of the Pharises tything omne olus every hearb who doubts but they tythe Individuall hearbs In like sort when Peter saw in a vessell let down unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every foure footed beast no question but Individuall beasts were let down unto him not every one of every kind but of every kind or of most kinds or of many kinds some so that the meaning of the distinction is not to exclude all individualls as this Author seems to carry the matter but only to exclude a necessity of understanding all individualls of all sorts It is enough if God will save some of all sorts that is of all conditions some individualls Then seeing he undertakes out of the very Text to give us better satisfaction then either Austin or our Divines have hitherto received it must needs be a shame for him to leave the present Text and fetch grounds elsewhere for the clearing of Pauls meaning here Now let us observe how congruously or incongruously to his own undertakings he carryeth himselfe in this businesse of the duty enjoyned and of the motive annexed there is no question but whereas he shapes the coherence thus and makes Paul in effect to speak after this manner our charity must reach to all to whom God extends his love to God will have all to be saved and therefore we must pray for all Though all this were granted him it makes nothing for him but over and above here are causelesse errours more then enough For first our charity must extend farther then Gods love was not Jacob bound to carry himselfe charitably towards his brother Esau though Gods hatred of Esau we know was as ancient as his love to Iacob 2. We are not bound to extend our charity so far as God extends his love for many thousands there be in the World not to speak of the Elect departed this life towards whom it may be God extends his love which yet are unknown to us are we bound to
sinne so he never decreed to damne any man but for sinne But as touching the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance in the granting and denying of this the Apostle plainly tells us he proceeds meerly according to the good pleasure of his will as when he saith The Lord hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And here also God is as just in his decrees as in his executions For if it be just with him to give this grace to whom he will and deny it to whom he will it is as just with him to decree the giving of it to whom he will and the denying of it also to whom he will And why shall not the Lord take liberty to cure infidelity and hardnesse of heart in whom he will as he cured it in Manasses and Saul and leave it uncured in whom he will as he left it uncured in many a proud Pharisee and proud Philosopher notwithstanding all their Morality they boasted of Very seasonably he confesseth Gods will to be omnipotent and irrefistible when neverthelesse he makes him to will the salvation of all Reprobates though not one of them is saved But by that which followes by will omnipotent and irrefistible it seems he understandeth only will absolute which he distinguisheth from will conditionate which can be no other I suppose then this my will is that all and every one shall be saved in case he believe and repent Now seeing it is as true that 't is Gods will that they shall be damned in case they believe not and repent not let every sober man judge whether this deserve to be accounted a will of saving rather then a will of damning especially in case all men naturally are farre more prone to infidelity and impenitency then to faith and repentance As for a will conditionate in God like enough this Author carryeth it hand over head without distinction as he doth many other things besides whereas no such will is agreeable to the divine nature quoad actum volentis as touching the act of willing as both Bradwardine by clear reason and Piscator out of the word of God have demonstrated but only quoad res volitas as touching the things willed by him 4. I have shewed the poverty of his performances by the particular examination of every place alleadged by him and made it plain how he betraies his own nakednesse of interpretation of Scripture and of argumentation throughout and therewithall the vanity of this his boast that our doctrine of absolute reprobation doth contradict these plain Scriptures But he like a brave fellow well conceited of his atchievements and having thereby gotten some authority to himselfe is bold to give his word that it contradicts also the whole course of Scripture which I verily believe he is as well able to performe as he hath performed the former and very judiciously takes upon him to distinguish between the whole course of Scriptures and a few places pickt up here and there as if they were no part of the whole course of Scripture Belike by reason of their obscurity as he pretends no matter if they were expunged like as owles are offended with day-light Our Saviour tells us of some that loved darknesse rather then light because their deeds were evill None hate the light of Gods truth more then such as are possessed with errours as with familiar spirits especially when they have been found to play the Apostates from Gods truth Whether I have dashed my selfe upon the rocks of Austins censure by contradicting any Scripture that he hath brought or only his corrupt and vile interpretation and accommodation of them let the indifferent judge Yet what more plain then this Gods purpose of election is not of works especially compared with the manner how Saint Paul proves it What more plain then this God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth It is apparent he utterly declines the criticall point of these controversies which is as touching Gods giving grace even the grace of faith and repentance and of what spirit that savoureth let every one judge As for interpreting any place we doe not abridge his liberty in interpreting it after what manner he thinks good but we are ready to weigh it and if we find it too light to esteem of it as it deserves neither doe we refuse to take into consideration what he or any of his complices are pleased to insist upon DISCOURSE The Second sort of Arguments Convincing drawn from Gods Attributes SECT I. As touching the Generall SEcondly it fights with some principall Attributes of God therefore it cannot be true For God useth not to make decrees contrary to his own glorious nature and incompatible with those excellent Attributes by which he hath discovered part of himselfe to men Two things are here to be premised 1. That Gods chief Attributes are those perfections in the manifestation of which by acts conformable to them God is most glorified which are Mercy Justice Truth c. For God is more honoured by the exercise of these amongst men then by the putting forth of his unlimited power and Soveraignty as a King is more renowned among his Subjects for his clemency equity candid and faire dealing then for his Dominion and Authority or any thing that is done only for the manifestation thereof And there is good reason for it For 1. Power is no vertue but mercy justice and truth are acts of power are not Morally good of themselves but are made good or evill by their concomitants if they be accompanied with justice mercy c. they are good if otherwise they are naught For justum oportet esse quod laudem meretur 2. Power and Soveraignty may as well be shewed in barbarous and unjust actions as in their contraries Saul shewed his authority and power to the full in slaying the Lords Priests and Nebuchadnezzar in casting the three Children into the fiery furnace and Daniell into the Lyons Denne but no mercy nor justice nor any thing else that was good 2. The second thing that is to be preconsidered is that justice mercy and truth in God are the same in nature with those vertues in men though infinitely different in degree as light in the aire is the same with light in the Sunne in nature not in degrees and that which is just mercifull and upright in men is so in God too And by these vertues in our selves and such acts as are conformable to them tanquam ex pede Herculem we may safely measure the same in God For otherwise these things would follow 1. The common and received distinction of Divine Attributes into communicable and incommunicable would fall to the ground for against it this night be said that the mercy justice truth and other vertues that are in us are not Gods perfections in a lower degree communicated to us but things of a different nature 2. Men cannot be truly said to
coherence of the words with that which goes before it appears to be spoken upon Gods dispensing and denying grace to whom he will and when he will As for example like as there was a time when God had a Church in the World without distinction of Jewes and Gentiles so afterwards the providence of God was to display it selfe after three severall waies the first was in gathering a Church unto himselfe out of the World from out of the posterity of Abraham these were called the Jewes in distinction from the Gentiles who for a long time had not obtained mercy as the Apostle speaks Rom. 11. 30. In as much as they believed not And this dispensation of grace peculiar unto the Jewes with rejection of the Gentiles continued for about 1600 years Then God gathered a Church among the Gentiles with rejection of the Jewes as the Apostle signifies in the place before alleadged saying now you have obtained mercy through their unbeliefe And this dispensation of Gods grace peculiar unto the Gentiles hath continued now for about 1600 years And we believe a time shall come for the calling of the Jewes and then the Church of God shall consist both of Jewes and Gentiles and the generall calling of them as the Apostle signifies Rom. 11. 12. If the fall of them be the riches of the World and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles how much more their fulnesse and v. 15. If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the World what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead and v. 31. Even so have these also now not believed that through your Gentiles mercy they also the Jewes might obtain mercy For God hath concluded them all under unbeliefe that he might have mercy on all And hereupon it is that the Apostle breaks forth into admiration of this various providence of God and different dispensation of his grace saying O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God how unsearcheable are his judgements and his waies past finding out So that albeit the justice of God be apparent to the understanding of man in some of his waies yet not in all Neither doth it follow that because God offers the justice of his courses to the triall of humane understanding in some particulars therefore he offers it to the same triall in all or that the understanding of man is able to comprehend it in all Not only carnall men cry out sometimes Where is the God of judgement Mal. 2. 17. Again it is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his commandements that we have walked humbly before the Lord of hosts But even the children of wisdome which are apt to justify her are yet sometimes offended through weaknesse of faith or want of judgement to comprehend the depth of Gods providence when they have considered the strange prosperity of the wicked as Job 21. 6 7 8. and David Psal 73. and Jeremy Jer. 12. But to consider punctually the instances here particulated First not one of them treats of Gods decrees though this Author boldly claps then in amongst the waies of God And these places throughout entreat not of the decrees themselves but of the executions of Gods decrees As that Isaiah 5. 3. Judge I pray you between me and my vineyard yet this was meere grace and not justice but the laying of it wast as there he threatneth for the unfruitfulnesse thereof was just even in the conscience of man So likewise the waies of God mentioned Ezech. 18. 25. are most equall as namely in rewarding the obedient and punishing the disobedient In like sort there is no question to be made of Gods decrees concerning the rewarding the one and punishing the other And it is as true that all this is nothing to the purpose The main question being touching Gods decree to give the grace of obedience to one and deny it unto others and of the execution hereof in shewing mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will No reason hereof can be devised by man without falling into manifest absurdity or manifest heresy or both It is true God will not slay the righteous with the wicked for the Infants of wicked Parents untill God be pleased to regenerate them are not to be accounted righteous as being borne children of wrath Ephes 2. 3. And therefore as in the conflagration of Sodome God took a course to save righteous Lot yet the Infant children of the Sodomites were consumed in the same fire with their Parents And in like manner I answere to that of Moses Num. 16. 22. Shall one man sinne and wilt thou be angry with all the congregation You know though Korah might be and in likelihood he was the principall instigator yet Dathan and Abiram the sonnes of Eliab and On the sonne of Peleth the sonnes of Reuben joyned with him in the separation and with these were joyned no lesse then 250 Captains of the assembly and they famous in the congregation and men of renowne Nor did those alone perish in this their separation but their families also So that whereas when Moses exhorted all the rest to depart from the tents of those wicked men and thereupon Dathan and Abiram came out and stood in the doore of the Tent with their Wives and their Sonnes and their little Children all these were swallowed up and went downe quick into the pit and doe you think their little Children were partners with them in this conspiracy And is not this judgement strange What can justify this but the power of God is Lord over his creature together with that originall corruption that is found in every one when they come into the world Guesse I pray how happy this Author is in his observations This makes me remember how at my first coming into this place having to deale with certain Brownists being willed thereunto by our Diocesan An old man among the rest was willing to conferre so we would give him liberty to open his mind at full we willingly condescended unto him and thereupon he began to alleadge places of Scripture to justify his separation and wheresoever he found the word seperate that he took up for an argument on his side like him that did set downe every ship that arrived in the harbour at Athens as one of his shipps and amongst the rest this 16 chapter of Numbers afforded him one authority v. 21. where the Lord speaks unto Moses and Aaron saying separate your selves from among this congregation whereunto I answered here indeed is a separation commanded but from whom Surely from those who rose up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron Now if you can prove us to be such as rise up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron then in the name of God separate your selves from us But if we are not the men that rise up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron but you rather then are not
that he saith he proves by Iohn 16. 9. The spirit shall convince the World of sinne because they believe not in me Reprobates therefore are bound to believe But now they cannot be justly bound to believe if they be absolute and inevitable Reprobates for three causes 1. Because it is Gods will that they shall not believe and it appears to be so because it is his peremptory will that they shall have no power to believe for its a Maâ—ime in Logick that Qui vult aliquid in causâ vult effectum ex ista causa necessario profluentem No man will say that it is Gods serious will that such a man shall live when it is his will that he shall not have the concourse of his providence and the act of preservation now will any say that forget not themselves that God doth unfainedly will that those men shall believe whom he will not furnish with necessary power to believe Now if it be Gods will that absolute reprobates shall in no wise believe they cannot in justice be tied to believe For no man is bound to an act against Gods peremptory will 2. Because it is impossible that they should believe they want power to believe and must want it still God hath decreed they shall have none to their dving day without power to believe they can no more believe then a man can see without an eye and live without a Soule Nemo obligatur ad impossibilia To believe is absolutely impossible unto them and therefore in justice they can be tyed to believe no more then a man can be bound to fly like a Bird or to reach heaven with the top of his finger 3. Because they have no object of saith Credere â—ubet dâ— fidei nulium objectum 〈◊〉 This decree makes God to oblige men to believe and to give them no Christ to believe in and to punish them as transgressors of the covenant of grace when yet they have no more right unto it or part in it then the very Devills Can God justiy bind men to believe a lye To believe that Christ died for them when it is no such matter If a man should command his Servant to eate and punish him for not eating and in the mean time fully resolve that he shall have no meat to eate Would any reasonable man say that he were just in such a command such a punishment Change but the names the case is the same TWISSE Consideration IN this discourse on the poynt of Gods justice this Author seems to storme and shewes great confidence of bearing downe all before him but the more ridiculous will it prove in the issue when it shall appeare that all this wind beats down no corne He takes his rise from a particular opinion of Zanchy whose opinion is that all even Reprobates are bound to believe they are elected in Christ unto salvation though never they shall believe nor can believe But doth this Author himselfe concurre with Zanchy in this opinion If he did I presume it were upon some better ground then the authority of Zanchy and in all likelihood we should have heard of those grounds or doth himselfe believe that that passage Ioh. 16. 9. He shall convict the World of sinne because they believed not in me doth evince as much or import as much as that is whereunto Zanchy drives it If he doth not concurre with Zanchy in either of these why should he tye us to the particular authority of Zanchy Must we be bound to stand to every interpretation of our Divines or every particular opinion of theirs wherein perhaps they were singular Secondly suppose this opinion of Zanchy be a truth and suppose we concurre with him herein will it from this opinion follow that therefore even Reprobates have power to believe Who seeth not that it is a flat contradiction to the antecedent For the Doctrine of Zanchy as here it is related is this that even Reprobates though they cannot believe yet are they bound to believe Now will it herehence follow that therefore they have power to believe Whereas it is manifestly supposed in the antecedent that they cannot believe And to my understanding the distinction of Elect and Reprobate in this case is most unseasonable For to what end doe we Preach unto our hearers that all sorts of men are bound to believe but this to wit that every one that heareth us being privy to his condition may understand that he of what condition soever he be which is supposed to be better known to him then to the Preacher or at least as well is bound to believe But as for these different conditions of elect and reprobate no man can be privy to the one untill he doth believe nor to the other untill finall perseverance in unbeliefe And if I list I could alleadge the opinion of another Divine who is very peremptory in his way professing that the Ministers calling upon us to believe is no commandement at all but like a Kings gracious Proclamation unto certain malifactors who are all accused of High Treason giving them to understand that in case they will voluntarily confesse their sinne and accept of his gracious pardon offered them he will most graciously pardon them But if they will not but stand rather to their triall presuming to acquit themselves right well and prove themselves to be true Subjects let them stand to the adventure and issue of their tryall And that thus the covenant of grace is offered to be received by them only who feare to come and dare not come to the tryall of the Covenant of works But I will not content my selfe in putting off Zanchy in this manner although by the way I cannot but professe that were I of their opinion who teach that God gives unto all and every one when they come into the World a certain grace for the enlivening of their wills whereby they are enabled to will any spirituall good whereto they shall be excited I see no reason but that the way is open to everlasting life as well by the covenant of works as by the covenant of grace for let perfect obedience be the spirituall good whereto they are excited let them but will it as it is supposed they can and then God will be ready to concurre to the doing of it like as to the work in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 resipiscere modò velimus so also I should think to work in us perfect obedience modò velimus And in this case I pray consider what need were there of faith in Christ on their part more then on the part of the Holy Angells certainly there would be no need of repentance Thirdly therefore consider we the constant Doctrine of Divines not that Reprobates are bound to believe but that all that heare the Gospell are bound to believe but in what sense Piscator saith as I remember that the thing which all such are bound to believe is
all causes meritorious If it be farther said that not so much the foresight of sin as to speak more properly sinne foreseen is the cause of reprobation I reply against it in this manner sinne foreseen doth suppose Gods decree to permit sinne and consequently if sinne foreseene be before reprobation then also the decree of permitting sinne is before the decree of reprobation that is the decree of damning for sinne But this cannot be as I endeavour to prove by two reasons The first is this There is no order in intentions but between the intention of the end and the intention of the means and the order is this that the intention of the end is before the intention of the means Therefore if the decree of permitting sinne be before the decree of damning for sinne the decree of permitting sinne must be the intention of the end and the decree of damning for sinne must be the intention of the meanes But this is notoriously untrue For it is apparent that damnation tends not to the permission of sinne as the end thereof for if it did then men were damned to this end that they might be permitted to sinne But far more likely it is that sinne should be permitted to this end that a man might be damned which yet by no means doe I a vouch other reasons I have to shew the vanity of this argumentation I rather professe that permssion of sinne and damnation are not subordinate as end means but coordinate both being means tending joyntly to a farther end which under correction from understandings purged from prejudice and false principles I take to be the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of justice vindicative 2. My second reason is if permission of sinne be first in intention and then damnation it followes that permission of sinne should be last in execution but this is most absurd namely that a man should be first damned and then suffered to sinne 2. My second principall argument is this Reprobation as it signifies Gods decree is the act of Gods will now the act of Gods will is the very will of God and the will of God is Gods essence and like as there can be no cause of Gods essence so there can be no cause of Gods will or of the act thereof Upon some such arguments as these Aquinas disputes that the predestination of Christ cannot be the cause of our Predestination adding that they are one act in God And when he comes to the resolution of the question he grants all as touching actum volentis that the one cannot be the cause of the other But only quoad praedestinationis terminum which is grace and glory or the things predestinated Christ is the cause of them but not of our predestination as touching the act of God predestinating And I think I may be bold to presume that Christs merits are of as great force to be the cause why God should elect man unto salvation as mans sinnes are of force to be the cause why God should reprobate him unto damnation The same Aquinas a tall fellow as touching Scolasticall argumentation hath professed that no man hath been so mad as to say that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis and why but because there can be no cause on mans part of the will of God quoad actum volentis Now reprobation is well knowne to be the will of God as well as election and therefore no cause can there be on mans part thereof quoad actum reprobantis And it is well knowne there is a predestination unto death as well as unto life and consequently t is as mad a thing in his judgement to maintaine that merits are the cause there of quoad actum praedestinantis God by efficacious grace could breake off any mans infidelity if it pleased him that is by affording him such a motion unto faith as he foresaw would be yeelded unto this is easily proved by the evident confession of Arminius formerly specified Now Why doth God so order it as to move some in such a manner as he foresees they will believe others in such a māner as he foresees they will not believe but because his purpose is to manifest the glory of his grace in the salvation of the one and the glory of his justice in the damnation of the other Herein I appeale to the judgement and conscience of every reasonable creature that understands it in spight of all prejudice and false principles to corrupt him 4. In saying sinne foreseen is the cause of Gods decree of damnation they presuppose a prescience of sinne as of a thing future without all ground For nothing can be foreknown as future unlesse it be future now these disputers presuppose a futurition of sinne and that from eternity without all ground For consider no sinne is future in its own nature for in its own nature it is meerely possible and indifferent as well not to be future as to become future and therefore it cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerely possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now what cause doe these men devise of the futurition of sinne Extra Deum nothing can be the cause thereof For this passage of things out of the condition of things possible into the condition of things future was from everlasting for from everlasting they were future otherwise God could not have known them from everlasting And consequently the cause of this passage must be acknowledged to have been from everlasting and consequently nothing without God could be the cause of it seeing nothing without God was from everlasting Therefore the cause hereof must be found intra Deum within God then either the will of God which these men doe utterly disclaime or the knowledge of God but that is confessed to presuppose things future rather then to make them so or the essence of God now that may be considered either as working necessarily and if in that manner it were the cause of things future then all such things should become future by necessity of nature which to say is Atheisticall or as working freely and this is to grant that the will of God is the cause why every thing meerely possible in its own nature doth passe from everlasting into the condition of a thing future if so be it were future at all And indeed seeing no other cause can be pitched upon this free will of God must be acknowledged to be the cause of it And consequently the reason why every thing becomes future is because God hath determined it shall come to passe but with this difference All good things God hath determined shall come to passe by his effection All evill things God hath determined shall come to passe by his permission And the Scripture naturally affords plentifull testimony to confirme this without forcing it to interpretations congruous hereunto upon presumptuous grounds that these arguments proceed from
naturall unto us all had Adam continued in his originall integrity But I am content to let that passe only whereas he saith that by such a law the Allmighty law-giver binds himselfe to his creatuees to give them such power as may enable them to keepe that law I think rather if any obligation had place in this case it were rather to maintaine the power already given them than to give it For every law-giver rather presupposeth ability of obedience in them to whom he gives a law then first gives a law and then gives ability to performe obedience thereunto And certainly God first created man after his owne image before he gave him any law to be a rule of his obedience unto his creatour So I take the multiplying vertue was given to his creatures in their creation before he said encrease and multiply In the curing of the lame man his word indeed was a word of power like as when he said let there be light and there was light For though it goe under the forme of a command yet it was not so properly a command which is to command obedience as the going forth of vertuous efficacy to create like as that also Ezek. 37. O ye dry bones heare the voyce of the Lord. And undoubtedly the strength of obedience given unto Adam preceded Gods command for his abstaining from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the Garden He had in his creation given him posse non cadere not non posse cadere the event manifested as much and it is as true according to the same Austin that God gave him posse stare si vellet not velle quod potuit But that God is bound to restore any such power unto mankind which they have wilfully lost is boldly avouched but let us consider how Scholastically it is proved 1. The first reason hereof is because God hath vouchsafed to enter into a new Covenant of Peace with men when he needed not To this I answer that God hath entred into a new Covenant with men is an indefinite proposition as touching the persons included in this Covenant and being not in a necessary matter but contingent this Covenant proceeding meerely from the good pleasure of God it hath no more force than to signify that God hath vouchsafed to enter into a new Covenant of peace with some men which we wilingly grant but not with all neither doth this proposition enforce any such meaning And that God hath not entred into a new Covenant with all I prove by these reasons 1. As many as are under the Covenant of grace sinne shall have no dominion over them Rom. 6. 14. Sinne shall not have the dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace But sinne hath the dominion over too many even over the most part of the world as we find by lamentable experience therefore too many even the most part of the World are not comprised under the Covenant of grace 2. The covenant of Grace doth covenant on Gods part not only to give salvation upon condition of faith and repentance but for Christs sake to renew mens natures also and to give them faith and repentance As appears by diverse passages of Scripture Jer. 31. 31. Behold the dayes come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah v. 32. Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt the which my Covenant they brake though I was a Father unto them But this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those daies saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people Ezek. 36. 26. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your bodies and will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my judgements and doe them Ezek. 20. 23. I will surely rule you with a mighty hand c. 37. And will cause you to passe under the rod and bring you into the bond of the Covenant Isai 57. 18. I have seen his waies and will heale him Hos 14. 5. I will heale their rebellions I will love them freely And that faith it selfe and repentance is the gift of God who hath taken upon him by his covenant of grace to be our Lord and our God to sanctify us is manifest by diverse pregnant passages of holy Scriptures 2. I come to his second reason And in that Covenant he requires obedience at mens hands even at theirs that perish God in his covenant of Grace requires obedience unto salvation but of his free grace undertakes to regenerate them and work them to obedience but how Agreeable unto their rationall natures that is by admonition instruction exhortation that is to work faith and repentance by exhorting and perswading them unto repentance And because this he performes by his Ministers to whom he hath not revealed who they are whom he hath chosen therefore he commands them to Preach indifferently unto all perswade all exhort all unto faith and repentance whereof also he makes this use even towards reprobates that whereas they are naturally confident of their ability to doe as much as any other and as Austin saith dicere solet humana superbia si scissem fecissem The Lord by his Ministry takes from them this excuse so that unto all that heare is this truth delivered whosoever believeth and repenteth shall be saved and thereupon every one is exhorted in the name of the Lord to believe and repent But God resolveth to worke faith and repentance in none but those whom he hath chosen according to that Acts 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life And withall the Doctrine delivered in the Gospell is such and so confirmed as may justly make them inexcusable that doe not believe when it shall appeare that many a vile legend they are apt to believe and in the mean time despise Gods holy Oracles by divine Authority many waies confirmed unto them 3. It is most true eternall life is promised to every on that obeyeth and keeps Covenant with God but God over and above worketh some unto obedience unto faith and repentance bestowing these gratious giftes on them even on whom he will when he hardeneth others even whom he will Rom. 9. 18. 4. He punisheth the disobedient with eternall death true but acording unto what Covenant Not according unto the Covenant of grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according unto the Covenant of the law the Covenant of works Whereas herehence this Author inferres that the most free God
and meanes another and therefore dissembles This is so evident that some maintainers of absolute reprobation doe not deny it but ascribe unto God Sanctam Simulationem duplicem personam duplicem voluntatem a Holy counterfeiting a double face a double will by which they offer extreame injury unto God for tolerabilius est saith Tertullian duos divisos quam unum versipellem Deum praedicare It is more tolerable to set up two Gods then a double and deceitfull God If this be granted Iesuits have no cause to be ashamed of their equivocations nor Polititians of their Holy water and crafty dissimulations men need not be afraid to cogge and lye and deale deceitfully one with another but are â—ather to be commended for their courtship and complements and false-heartednesse because in this they doe but imitate God to whom whosoever they be that come nearest they are the best But howsoever some doe inconsideratly ascribe such things to God the most I know would tremble to entertaine such thoughts and therefore the more horrible it is to lay such things to the charge of the Almighty the farther I take this opinion to be from all truth and honesty TWISSE Consideration GOD he saith by our Doctrine is made full of guile in his passionate wishes that even these men might repent that repent not The guile I guesse consists in this that God hereby makes shew that he would have them to repent when yet indeed he hath no such will To this I answer that by the same reason he might conclude that God carrieth himselfe with guile in taking unto himselfe eyes and eares and hands and heart for hereby he makes shew that he hath the members of a man But to this we answer that this shew is only unto them that understand that properly which is to be taken figuratively so that it is not the word of God so much as the weaknesse of men in understanding it that casts this colour For these things indeed are spoken only per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a metaphoricall kind of speech And if God takes liberty to conforme himselfe to the members of our body may not he take as great liberty to conforme himselfe to the passions of our minds and to assume unto him the passions of feare wrath and jealousy joy sorrow and such like Isai 63. 8. For he said surely they are my people Children that will not lye so he was their Saviour yet what followeth in the next verse save one But they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit According to the course of this Divines superficiall consideration a man might conceive that God is subject to errour and improvidence as well as man for God said surely they will not lye but it appeared by the event that they did lye So that hereupon we are driven to conclude that the former passage is delivered per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in conformity to a mans judgement who promiseth unto himselfe better obedience from his child for the time to come then afterwards he finds In like sort God in his passionate wishes conformes himselfe to the condition of man who useth this sometimes as a means to worke impression upon his child to be more carefull to order his conversation towards his parents And this being apt to work upon a child though but naturally ingenuous why may not God use this course nay if he should not use this course he could not be said to doe all for his vineyard that could be done in the way of outward husbandry So that passionate wishes are but a passionate kind of exhortation God through us doth beseech you saith Paul we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5. 20. Yet neverthelesse the same Apostle professeth that the Gospell was a savour of death unto death to some 2 Cor. 2. 15. Now the Gospell includes all these and such like patheticall admonitions And hereby God doth effectually signify how much he delights in the obedience of the creature and in the glorifying of his mercy in their salvation But yet this mercy of God in giving the grace of obedience is not shewed indifferently towards all but only to some even whom the Lord will Rom. 9. 18. And this consideration drives us to interpret such passionate wishes not properly but figuratively For whereas the Lord saith Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to feare me Who can deny but that God could give them such an heart if it pleased him And the same Moses professeth of these very people of Israell that God had not given them such an heart for the space of 40 years Deut. 29. 4. you have seen the great temptations and signes But the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare unto this day and Jerem. 32. 40. He makes promise of giving it to some I will put my feare in their heart that they shall never depart away from me In like sort whereas the Lord saith Isai 48. 18. Oh that thou hadst hearkened unto my commandements Psal 81. 13. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my waies who doubts but that it was in the power of God to work them hereunto by boaring their eares and circumcising them by regenerating them and so making them to be borne of God that so being of God they might heare his words Iohn 8. 47. As also to put his own spirit within them and cause them to walke in his statutes and keep his judgements and doe them Ezek. 36. 27. 2. In his expostulations in that Isai 5. 3. What could I have done more for my vineyard What doth this signify more than that more could not be done But how In the way of outward Husbandry conforming himselfe to an husbandman that hath planted a vineyard For can it be denied but that God could have made them fruitfull had it pleased him and though Paul plants and Apollo watereth yet Is it not Gods peculiar office to give the encrease Is it not he that worketh in us every good thing that is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Heb. 13. 21. Is not he both the Author and finisher of our faith Was it not he that gave repentance unto Israell Acts 5. 31. And to the Gentiles Acts 11. 18. And must we not waite with our hearers if so be God may give them repentance 2 Tim. 2. 25. And as for that of Jerem. 2. 32. Can a Maid forget her Ornament or a Bride her attire yet my people have forgotten mee And have I been a Wildernesse unto Israell or a land of darknesse Is not this exprobration of their unthankfulnesse just and without guile unlesse God doe actually change all their hearts Yet this might be a means and also was and is and ever shall continue to be a means to bring Gods people to repentance And undoubtedly the worst of them had power
come and spoken to them they should not have had sinne but now they have no cloake for their sinne doe say it is evident that Christ in his Preaching did administer so much inward grace as was sufficient to convince those that rejected the Gospell of positive unbeliefe and so to render them obnoxious to just punishment and consequently say I so much as sufficed by their good husbandry to have converted and saved them For that grace leaves none inexcusable which is unsufficient to convert them I will conclude that which they say of this gratious intention of God in the Ministry of the Word with that speech of Prosper cited by them in the same place non omnes vocari ad gratiam eos quibus omnibus Evangelium praedicatur nonrecte dicitur etiamsi sint qui Evangelio non obaudiant They that say that all those to whom the Gospell is Preached even those that obay not the Gospell are not called to grace they say an untruth God looks for grapes sayth the text Isai 5. 2. What doth this imply but that it was Gods principall aime in the husbandry which he bestowed upon the Church of Israell that it should bring forth good fruit though in the end it did not How oft would I have gathered you sayth Christ to Jerusalem Math. 23. 37. and in John 5. 34. These things have I spoken to you that ye might be saved but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life v. 40. Intimating no lesse than this that it was his full intent by his preaching to gather and to save those very particular men that in the end were not gathered nor saved through their neglect or contempt of Christs Ministry TWISSE Consideration NO question but The word of God is the sword of the spirit Ephes 6. And the Law of the Lord is a perfect Law converting the Soule Psal 19. And it seemes to be delivered in opposition to the Book of the creatures as if he had said though The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work yet this is the peculiar prerogative of the Book of Gods word and the Doctrine contained therein that it converteth the soule and upon this is grounded the great preferment of the Jews above the Gentiles chiefely that unto them were committed the Oracles of God Yet this Author is content to make no difference between the use and end of the Book of Creatures and the Book of Gods word but professeth the use and end of both to be the very same The passage alleadged out of the suffrages of the Brittain Divines is most aliene from the present purpose For the Thesis of theirs proceedeth of the administration of grace by the word not of regeneration but of conviction of all such who believe not and continue impenitent that through their own fault they perish for neglecting or contemning the Gospell In Ecclesia ubi juxta promissum hoc Evangelii salus omnibus offertur ea est administratio gratiae quae sufficit ad convincendos omnes impenitentes incredulos quod sua culpa voluntaria vel neglectu vel contemptu Evangelii perierint oblatum beneficium amiserint And in the explication of this Thesis they propose two things to be cleared 1. That some measure of grace is ordinarily administred in the Ministry of the Gospell aliquam mensuram gratiae ordinarie in Ministerio Evangelii administrari and for proofe hereof alone they alleadge this passage out of Isai 59. ult This is my covenant with them saith the Lord My spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth So that the word and spirit are joyned togeather alwaies but not alwaies to regenerate but either to regenerate and bring to obedience or to convict of disobedience And accordingly The Ministers of the New Testament are called Ministers not of the letter but of the spirit that is not of the Law the Ministry whereof is not the Ministry of the spirit but yet this is rightly to be understood to wit of the spirit of adoption for undoubtedly even the Ministry of the Law is the Ministry of the Spirit also but of the spirit of bondage to hold men under feare it is called the Ministry of condemnation and the reason hereof I conceive to be because God doth not concurre with the Ministry of the Law by the holy Spirit to worke any man to the performance of the condition of the Law which is exact and perfect obedience but thus he doth concurre with the Ministry of the Gospell namely by his spirit to work men to the performance of the condition thereof which is faith in Christ and true repentance therefore the letter to wit of the Law is called a killing letter but the Gospell is joyned with a quickning spirit and therefore Piscator conceives that the Gospell in this place is called by the name of the spirit Soe then the Gospell giveth life by the spirit which accompanyeth the Ministry thereof but to whom To all as this Author supposeth Nothing lesse the generall experience of the world doth manifest the untruth thereof But this Author is ready to suppose though not very forward to speake out in this that it would regenerate if men were not defective to them selves So then man must first performe some worke on his part and then the spirit of the Gospell doth regenerate them as much as to say the grace of regeneration is dispensed by God according to some work of man which in plain termes Pelagius durst not professe but joyned with others to anathematize it in the Synod of Palastine Yet this Doctrine is the very Helena wherewith the Arminians are enamored Now the Apostle professeth in plaine termes of himselfe and his fellow-labourers we are unto God the sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them which perish to the one we are the savour of death unto death and to the other a savour of life unto life So then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2. 11. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 19. And the seed of the new birth 1 Pet. 1. 23. As where by God regenerates man according to that of Saint Iames of his owne will hath he begotten us by the word of truth Iam. 1. 18. Not whereby man doth regenerate himselfe according to the Arminian tenet whose doctrine it is that God workes in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle credere and resipiscere modò velimus Now as God hath mercy on wom he will in converting his heart unto obedience of faith and repentance Rom. 9. 18. and 11. 30. So God regenerates whom he will So that we all grant that Gods word is by Gods appointment an instrument to make men new creatures But whom Not all indifferently but the elect of God called the sheepe of Christ Iohn 10. 16. Other sheepe have
of eternall life Now I pray consider who are those wicked men whom God thus gives over to their lusts Were we not all such Did not God find us all weltering in our bloud Ezek. 16. Had not we all stony hearts Ezek. 36. Were we not all blind lame deafe nay were we not dead in sinnes Ephes 2. 1. Did not the Gospell find the Ephesians so Did not the Word of truth find the Jewes so James 1. 18. How then comes this difference that Christ is a stumbling blocke to some and not to others We say the difference is because God hath mercy on some and hardens others Rom. 9. 18. Because some are borne of God therefore they heare Gods Word others are not borne of God and therefore they heare not Gods word Ioh. 8. 47. The Arminians say God giveth power to every one by an universall grace to will any good whereto he shall be excited So when the Gospell is Preached every one hath power to obey it if he doth obey it then Christ is a precious stone to him but if it disobey it then he is given up to the lusts of his heart and permitted to dash against Christ and other meanes of eternall life Here we have a phrase but we are to seeke of the meaning thereof what is it to dash against Christ It must needs be to commit some sinne or other for that is the object of Gods permition for of all other things God is acounted the Author not the permitter the object of permition is nothing but sinne now what sinne can that be whereby we are said to dash against Christ and other meanes of salvation but disobedience to Christ and to the meanes of grace so that from the first to the last the sence comes to this as many as disobey Christ and the meanes of grace they are given over to the lusts of their hearts and permitted to dash against Christ and other means of eternall life that is are permitted to disobey Christ and to resist other means of eternal life So that their disobedience to Christ and the Gospell is very punctually and juditiously set downe to precede by two degrees their disobedience to Christ and his Gospell Some may thinke that this Arminian prosilite doth not carry himselfe well in his businesse and for betraying the nakednesse of his cause may be in dainger to be excommunicated out of their Synagogue But Sir you must believe it this is the very leprosy of their Doctrine that over spreds it from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot and they are in love with it accounting it not only sanity but perfect beauty God indeed is said in Scripture to give men over to their lusts when he forbears either courses of admonition and reproofe by his word or by his judgements in his workes or when he forbears to restraine Satan as formerly he did but disobedience to the Gospell undoubtedly is hoc ipso a dashing against Christ although God may continue to admonish and exhort even to the end as to prophane and hypocriticall persons in the Church he gives not over this course of his untill the end I have often represented the absurdity of this Authors conceit of a gracious intent in God of promoting the eternall good of Reprobates whereas it cannot be denied that God hath from everlasting intended their damnation and as for our saying that God intends they shall be without excuse that Christ is set up for their falling that the Gospell is unto God a sweet savour in Christ not only in them that are saved but in them that perish This Author is so farre from overthrowing the truth of it that besides other absurdities delivered by him in the way the Author himselfe hath no heart to deny it only saying that God intends it not primarily which is rather to grant that he intends it though not primarily as whereabouts there is no question than to deny it and that occasionally they are so whereas no man but himselfe hath said in saying that they doe effect this end that Christ or the Gospell are the cause hereof but only that they are the occasion But this hinders not Gods intention of them For undoubtedly God intends as well things occasioned as things caused though not in his first thoughts and resolutions which belongs rather to the end than to the meanes to wit to be first intended So that in plaine tearmes he hath not hitherto dared to deny that God intends them though he manifests a good mind to maintaine that they come to passe accidentally and casually in respect of God For he spares not to professe that the scorching of men and the hurting of weake eyes falls out accidentally and that to God for he proposeth this by way of distinction from that which God intends which he saith is the chearing of men by the light of the Sunne like as here he denies that mens stumbling at Christ is a thing intended by God like as in saying a sinnefull event is not properly under Gods will and decree but under his prescience only or at most under a permissive decree And this I confesse is a very plausible doctrine in the judgement of flesh and bloud save that this Authors faint carriage in the delivering of it is enough to make a man suspect it as plausible as it is yet it is hardly true and sound For he dares not say that a sinfull event is not at all under Gods decree only that he saith it is not properly under Gods decree But Saint Peter speaking of them that stumbled at the word of God through disobedience professeth in plaine termes that hereunto they were ordained 1 Pet. 2. 6. And all the Apostles there assembled Acts 4. 28. Doe professe that both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together against the Holy Sonne of God to doe what Gods hand and Gods counsell had determined before to be done And ere I part I hope to prove that any sinfull act that comes to passe in the world is as properly intended of God as any good act whatsoever although there be a vast difference in the bringing of them forth God causing the one only permitting the other as it is evill And that because it comes under Gods prescience it is well they are not so Atheistical as to deny Gods prescience but I doubt not to make it good that either they must deny that every thing comes under Gods prescience or they must grant that every thing comes under Gods decree For consider nothing can be foreknowne of God as future unlesse it be future Now let us quietly enquire how any thing becomes future and if any cause hereof can with reason be devised without the decree of God let us all become Arminians and deny God either at all to be or to be a free agent but working by necessity of nature For if future things be future of their own
did invite them to no other end than this namely to take away these excuses surely these excuses were clearly taken away and consequently so farre they should prove unexcusable But I guesse they take the denomination of inexcusable not according to the signification formall as it signifyes bereaved of excuse but rather according to the signification materiall connotated thereby which is faultinesse and in this sence I confesse it is ordinarily taken togeither with the condition of being without excuse and thus in this sense I willingly subscribe unto them and therewithall shew what I take to be their meaning namely this that if God making shew that if they believe he will accept them and that they shall be Saved did not indeed meane that he would in that case accept and save them then there were no reason why they should be accounted faulty and condemned for their not believing Thus in a desire exactly to conforme my selfe to the judgement of these worthyes of our Church made choyse of by our Soveraign to be sent in so Honourable an Embassage to countenance that famous Synod of the most reformed Churches I have made bold to interpret them and to shew my concurrence with them although I have not consulted with any of them upon that poynt which if I had like enough I might have received better satisfaction And I hope they will not disdaine that without consulting them I have adventured thus to interpret them and what doe I know whether their judgement may not prove to be the very same and that in deed they had no other meaning 2. My former answer will serve for this Gods Ministers doe offer Salvation conditionally to wit upon condition of faith neither are any ordained to be condemned but in case of infidelity yet I see the cunning carriage of this Authors instructer for he would faine fly from the absolutenesse or conditionality of Gods decree as touching the things willed quoad res volitas unto the absolutenesse or conditionality of it quoad actum volentis as touching the act of willing although both Uossius practise and this Authors also in expressing his owne meaning of Gods conditionall will and Doctor Jacksons profession is to the contrary namely that it is to be taken quoad res volitas only and not quoad actum volentis but withall we teach that Gods Ministers doe not only teach upon what tearmes on mans part God will either bestow salvation or inflict damnation but also they teach that upon no tearmes on our parts but meerely according to the good pleasure of his own will doth God shew mercy unto some bestowing faith and repentance upon them and by denying the same grace harden others and they are the true witnesses of God equally in both 3. Neither is there any iust excuse hereby left to Reprobates yet I confesse this were a very plausible pretence if we had no Oracles of God at all to be the rule of our faith concerning God and his providence but as we have so we faile not therein of a direct answer hereunto Rom. 9. For after the Apostle had professed That God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth v. 18. Forthwith he brings in this ojection upon the stage v. 19. Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will And both Bellarmine and Arminians confesse that where obduration hath place there is no power of obedience And the Apostle himselfe implyes no lesse in that place Now what doth the Apostle answer hereunto but this v. 20. O man who art thou which disputest with God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou formed me thus 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lumpe to make one vessell to honour and another to dishonour as much as to say if God be acknowledged to be our Creatour we must give him leave to doe what he will with his creature for doth not every creature doe what he will with the worke of his hand Every tradesman in his trade takes as much liberty to doe with the workmanship of his hands as this comes to And Medina hath not spared to professe and that tanquam ex concordi omnium Theologorum sententiâ that if God should inflict the very paines of Hell upon an innocent creature he shall doe no unjust act though herein he should not carry himselfe as Judex Judge but as Dominus vitae mortis as Lord of life amd Death And we all know what power God giveth us over inferiour creatures to strangle some to cut the throats of others to knocke downe others not with reference to the moderation of their paine but only to the wholsome condition of their flesh unto us And we know what power God executed upon his own deare Sonne to break him for our iniquityes on him to lay the chastisement of our peace that so by his stripes we might be healed But let that passe let us try another way that may be answered unto this Suppose not one shall be condemned for want of faith but only left to be judged by the covenant of workes who seeth not but that the same plea hath place here as well as in the former case and God may be as well chalenged for injustice in condemning men for breach of the law who have no power to keepe the law And who sees not how ready this Author is to justifye this plea and consequently acknowledge that every man hath power to keepe the law and so to bring us back againe to the covenant of works or to confound the covenant of grace with the covenant of works which indeed is their course throughout For they maintaine that every man hath universall grace for the enlivening of their wills whereby they are inabled to will any spirituall good whereto they shall be excited and who doubts but obedience to the law and that in all perfection is a spirituall good againe they maintaine that they can believe if they will and so accordingly doe any good thing that they will and indeed were not the will in fault I know no naturall power defective in the performance of any good that a man hath a will unto this I can shew under the hands of one of them in a manuscript sent unto me And I have good reason to conceive there are more hands in it than one Thirdly consider dost thou complaine thou hadst no power to believe but I pray thee tell me hast thou any will to believe If thou neither hast nor ever hadst any will to believe what a shamefull and unreasonable thing is it to complaine that thou hast no power to believe Saint Paul had a most gratious will but he found in himselfe no power to doe that he would but what is the issue of this complaint To fly to the face of God Nothing lesse but to confesse his own wretchednesse and flee unto God in this
cloake too We finde by experience the most uncleane person if he meets with never so beautifull a piece yet if he knowes shee hath the Poxe the feare of infection will be of more power to restraine him then the feare of Hell Yet God by his word workes in men even in carnall men as a tast of the sweetnesse of Heaven so of the bitternesse of Hell the one to erect with hope the other to awe with feare and in both respects they may be said in my judgement to have a tast of the powers of the World to come And like as the Law was added because of transgression that is to restraine transgression as some expound it so likewise the representation of Gods wrath and jealousy may in the sanctions thereof have good force in this And in the Godly also I make no question but it is of good use though the love of God hath in great measure overcome that servile feare yet as their faith is not so perfect as to be voyd of all doubting so neither is their hope so perfect as to be free from all mixture of feare But the chast feare the filiall feare feare of displeasing God who hath been so gracious unto them is that feare which is predominant in such And even feare of Gods fatherly chastisements in this world is an hedge of thornes keeping them within the goodnesse of the Lord and farre more forcible then the feare of Hell fire to the carnall Gospeller And this Author doth carry himselfe very unlearnedly in confounding their differences and discoursing of the feare of God without distinction As if the feare of of God in Job 1. 1. were the feare of Hell and the feare of the Midwives Exod. 1. 17. As if there were no difference between servile feare and a filiall feare Saint Paul was so confident of his salvation that he professeth his perswasion That neither death nor life nor Angells nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature should be able to separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 38. Yet 2 Cor. 5. 11. Knowing therefore saith he the feare of the Lord we perswade men Gen. 20. 11. Abraham said The feare of God is not in this place therefore they will kill me for my Wifes sake But doth this Author carry himselfe as it becomes a Divine to take the feare of God wheresoever he meets with it for no other feare then the feare of Hell Certainly the feare of God is as a fountaine of life to avoyd the snares of death Yet I presume though our Saviour was nothing affected with the feare of hell yet was he never a whit the lesse forward to all holy coversation Nor Paul neither though he professeth I know whom I have trusted c. The Lord will deliver me from every evill worke and preserve me to his heavenly Kingdome That feare and trembling Phil. 2. 13. is not feare of hell but humility standing in opposition to presumption of a mans own strength as appears by the reason wherewith the Apostle enforceth that exhortation of his To worke out our salvation with feare and trembling for saith he God it is that worketh in you both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure And if the working out of our salvation goes not on handsomely except the feare of missing it be an ingredient to the worke as this Author discourseth then it seemes his feare of missing makes him goe on more handsomely in working out his salvation then either Paul the Apostle or our Saviour did for I no where find that our Saviour feared the missing of it no nor Paul neither after his conversion though he knew full well that conscionable carriage in his vocation was a necessary meanes without which he could not obtaine it and therefore professeth that he did beat downe his body and bring it in subjection least Preaching unto others himselfe should become a cast away We deny that by the absolute decree maintained by us hope and feare are taken away and we prove it by an invincible argument For undoubtedly the decree of Christs salvation was absolute yet did not this take away either hope or feare for it is recorded of him That for the hope that was set before him he despised the shame and also that he was heard in that which he feared though sinfull feare and slavish feare was farre from him as farre as hell from heaven The object of Christian hope is not only a good thing possible to be had but certainly to be had For we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 6. A full assurance of hope were it of a thing uncertaine how indecent were it for the Apostle to compare it to an Anchor 1 Iohn 3. 3. He that hath this hope purgeth himselfe as he is pure Was this a wavering hope grounded upon an uncertain apprehension Marke the verse immediately preceding and consider whether it doth not enforce the contrary Now are we the sonnes of God but yet it is not made manifest what we shall be And we know marke his assurance well that when he shall be made manifest we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is The description of feare is answerable to the description of hope we were wont to define the one by the expectation appropinquantis boni the other by the expectation imminentis mali Yet it is true the object of the one is such a good as in its own nature is possible to be obtained and of the other is such an evill as is possible to be avoyded But like as eternall life is not attainable without faith and repentance so neither is damnation avoydable but by faith and repentance And we willingly grant that both eternall life is attainable and damnation avoydable by faith and repentance yet undoubtedly the unpreventable nature of an evill doth no way hinder a mans feare unlesse he knowes it to be unpreventable Neither doth the knowledge of the unpreventable nature thereof hinder feare but improveth it rather in as much as in such a case there is no place for any hope to qualify the feare And this is farther apparent by the example of the Devills of whom Saint Iames saith That they believe and tremble surely they doe not tremble the lesse because their torment is unpreventable by the appoyntment of of God yet doe they not give themselves up to their sorrowes but cryed out to our Saviour What have we to doe with thee thou Jesus the Sonne of God art thou come to torment us before our time Caesars case was not the case of feare for feare is the apprehension of an evill before it come but Caesar was so farre from fearing that though he were forewarned to take heed of the Ides of March as I remember least they proved fatall to him was so far from apprehending any feare thereupon that going that
like as none were more opposite to the Epicures then they so none were more religious and devout among the Heathens then they Yet there is no opinion so true or good but by a prophane heart may be abused But as for the efficacy of Gods will we are so farre from maintaining that it takes away either the liberty of mans will or the contingency of second causes that we professe with Aquinas that the root of all contingency is the efficacious will of God and with the Authors of the Articles of the Church of Ireland Artic. 11. That God did from all eternity ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe and yet neither the liberty nor the contingency of second causes is thereby destroyed but established rather DISCOURSE The Fift and last sort of Reasons It is an Enimy to True Comfort SECT I. I Am come to my last reason against it drawn from the Vncomfortablenesse of it It is a doctrine full of desperation both to them that stand and to them that are fallen to men out of temptation and in it It 1. Leads men into temptation 2. Leaves men in it And therefore it is no part of Gods word for that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good newes to men a store-house of sweet consolations for them that stand and such as are fallen These things are written saith the Apostle Rom. 15. 4. That by patience and consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope implying that therefore was the word written and left to the Church that by the comforts contained in it those poore soules that look towards heaven might never want in any changes or chances of this mortall life a sweet gale of hope to refresh them and carry on their ship full merrily towards the Haven It leads men into temptation and into such a one too as is as sharpe and dangerous as any the tempter hath The Devill can easily perswade any man that makes absolute reprobation a part of his creed that he is one of those absolute Reprobates because there are more absolute Reprobates even an hundred for one then absolute chosen ones and a man hath a great deale more reason to think that he is one of the most then one of the least one of the huge multitude of inevitable castawaies then one of the little flock for whom God hath absolutely prepared a Kingdome Such a man is not only capable of but framed and fashioned by his opinion for this suggestion which is a very sore one if we may believe Calvin Bucer and Zanchius Calvin tells us Quod nulla tentatione vel gravius vel periculosius fideles percellit Satan that the Devill cannot assault a believer with a temptation more dangerous And a little after he saith It is so much the deadlier by how much commoner it is then any other Rarissimus est cujus non interdum animus hac cogitatione feriatur unde tibi salus nisi ex Dei electione Electionis autem quae tibi revelatio Quae si apud quempiam semel invaluit aut diris tormentis miserum perpetuo exeruciat aut reddit penitus attonitum So ordinary is the temptation that he who is at all times free from it is a rare man we are to conceive that he speakes of those that believe absolute reprobation and so dangerous it is that if it get strength he which is under it is either miserably tormented or mightily astonished And a little after this he saith againe Ergo si naufragium timemus sollicité ab hoc scopulo cavendum in quem nunquam sine exitio impingitur He that will not wrack his soule must keep from this rock Bucer also hath a passage like to this Vt caput omnis noxiae tentationis saith he repellenda est quaestio sumusnè praedestinati Nam qui de hoc dubitat nec vocatumse nec justificatum esse credere poterit hoc est nequit esse Christianus This doubt whether we are predestinated or no Must be repelled as the head of every pernitious temptation for he that doubts of this cannot be a Christian Praesumendum igitur ut principium fidei nos omnes esse a Deo praescitos Every man therefore must presume it as a principle of faith that he is elected This very speech of Bucers Zanchy makes use of to the same purpose We see then by the restimony of these worthy men that this temptation is very dangerous and ordinary too to such as think there are absolute reprobates The truth of both will farther appeare by the example of Petrus Hosuanus a Schoolemaster in Hungary who intending to hang himselfe signified in a letter which he left in his study for the satisfaction of his friends and Countrymen the cause of it in that writing he delivered these three things 1. That he was of Calvins and S. Austins opinion that men are not dealt withall secundum bona or mala opera according to their works good or evill but that there are occultiores causae more hidden causes of mens eternall condition 2. That he was one of that woefull company of absolute castawaies Vas formatum in ignominiam a vessell prepared to dishonour and that therefore though his life had been none of the worst he could not possibly be saved 3. That being unable to beare the dreadfull apprehensions of wrath with which he was affrighted he hanged himselfe For these are some of his last words there recorded Discedo igitur ad Lacus Infernales aeternum dedecus patriae meae Deo vos commendo cujus misericordia mihi negata est I goe to those infernall lakes a perpetuall reproach to my Country commending you to God whose mercy is denyed mee Out of this example we may easily collect two things 1. That men who think that there are many whom God hath utterly rejected out of his only will and pleasure may be easily brought to think by Satans suggestion that they are of that company And 2. That this temptation is very dangerous I conclude therefore the first part of my last Reason that absolute Reprobation leads men into temptation TWISSE Consideration AS I remember when this Author first had resort unto some prime stickler for the Arminian way to conferre with him there about it was told me that this Authour should alledge that our doctrine of election was a comfortable doctrine but then on the other side it was alledged that granting that yet with all it did expose to dessolutenes of life And therefore I little expect any such argument as this to be proposed least of all to be ranged amonst the nūber of those that are taken to be of a convincing nature Yet is it the lesse strange because the Apostle telleth us of some that their course is proficere in pejus to growe worse and worse But let us consider whether he speeds any better in this then in the former And whereas he saith It is a doctrine full of desperation both to them that stand
be tormented Againe the obedience of Christ in generall is of a meritorious nature even meritorious of everlasting life Now if Christ hath merited everlasting life for all and every one how comes it that all and every one doe not enjoy Everlasting Life Shall not God the Father deale with his owne Sonne according to the exigency of his merits whether it be that they are so meritorious in their owne nature or by the constitution of God either meerely or joyntly with the dignity of their nature in reference to the dignity of the person who performed them as being not only man but God even the eternall Son of God one the same God with his Father Blessed for ever Now it can be made good that all sins of all men are fully satisfied for by the death of Christ that Christ hath merited in better manner Everlasting Life for all every one then they could have done for themselves although they had passed the whole course of their lives as free from sinne as the very elect Angells this I confesse is a comfortable doctrine with a witnesse though God leave men to themselves and to the power of their owne free wills to doe what they list And I see noe reason but that in the midst of all Ryot and excesse they may be as confident of their Salvation as if they had all faith as of certaine Lutherans it is written as I saw in a letter of an English Divine writen from Rome I make no question but their answer will be that albeit Christ hath thus satisfied for all sinnes of all and every one and merited Eternall Life for all and every one yet the benefit of his merits and satisfaction by Gods Ordinance shall redound to none but such as believe and repent and persevere therein unto death And what comfort can herehence arise to an afflicted soule unlesse she doe believe and repent If she doe believe and repent our Doctrine gives assurance to such of their election the Arminian doth not Here I presume they will say that every one may believe if he will repent if he will and may they not as well say that every soule afflicted with despaire may leave of to despaire if they will and consequently leave of to be afflicted if they will And I confesse this way of consolation hath a very short cut if the afflicted soul would harken unto them Especially considering that I doe not find that in these their discourses they take any notice of any sinne to hinder this no not so much as of the sinne against the Holy Ghost or of that sinne which S t John calleth a sinne unto death But I doe much doubt whether this were the manner of comfort which the Prophet Esay thought himselfe enabled for by Gods grace when he sayd The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the Learned that I should know how to speake a word in season to him that is weary he wakeneth Morning by Morning he wakeneth mine eare to heare as the learned Wherefore let me make bold in behalfe of the Patient to move unto you a question Doth not the Scripture teach us that faith is the gift of God that repentance is the gift of God Act 11. 18. 2 Tim 2. 25 How then is it possible for me to believe and repent unlesse God give me the grace of faith and repentance I presume you will answer that God gives faith and repentance first in as much as he gives all men power to believe and repent And secondly in as much as he concurres with them to the act of faith and repentance in case they will But I pray thee tell me is not the will to repent also the gift of God And if I have not as yet the will to repent how is it possible I should repent Can any man repent without a will to repent Is not repentance chiefly the charge of the will But you will say I suppose that even this will to repent God is ready to worke in me if I will repent But in case a man will repent what need hath he of any Divine assistance to cause in him this will to repent seeing he hath it already Lastly doth not God give a man a power to refuse to believe to refuse to repent if he will And is he not as ready to concurre with him to any sinfull act if he will and to worke the very will also of doing it in case he will And are not these then the gifts of God as well as others To conclude what think you of the gift of faith hath Christ merited it for us or no It seemes by your Doctrine he hath not as when you teach that albeit Christ hath satisfied for all merited Everlasting life for all yet the benefit of Christ obedience and death is by the ordinance of God applyable to none but such as have faith wherby it appears that you do not make faith to be any of those benefits which redound unto us by the obedience of Christ For though it be decent to say that salvation as a benefit procured by Christs obedience can redound to none but to such as believe yet it is very indecent to say that faith it selfe as a benefit of Christs death shall by the ordinance of God redound to none but to such as believe And indeed the Remonstrants now adaies doe openly professe that Christ merited faith for none And they are to be commended for dealing ingenuously and confessing that whereunto the Genius of their Tenet doth carry them Our Arminians deale not so plainly but as they pretend that faith and repentance are the gifts of God so they pretend that Christ merited them for us to wit he merited universall grace for all and every one whereby every man may believe if he will and repent if he will And how comfortable this particular is I have already shewed for it is as much as to say you may cease to despaire if you will you may cease to be afflicted if you will Secondly Christ merited that God should concurre to the working of faith and repentance in them provided that they would worke it in them selves Yea the very will to believe and repent God will worke in them modo velint So that still the resolution of all comfort is into a mans owne free-will For God gives not faith and repentance to whom he will or according to the meere pleasure of his will but rather according to mens workes And this direct Pelagianisme condemned so many hundred years agoe is that most comfortable doctrine of Christianity which our Arminians doe afford And this discourse as touching the universality of Christs death may be applyed also to the universality of Gods love which ends in this that all men shall be saved if they doe believe and that every man may believe if he will and that God is ready to worke faith and repentance in them provided that they will
be as ready to worke it in themselves 3. And now I come to this Authors third Topick place of consolation drawn from the universality of the Covenant of grace Now this is as strange as any of the former or rather much more and when the Covenant of grace is so much enlarged we have cause to feare that it is confounded with the Covenant of Workes And indeed if it were true as some of this sect professe namely that there is an universall grace given to al for the enlivening of their wills wherby they are enabled to will any spirituall good whereunto they shall be excited and to believe if they will and from the love of temporall things to convert themselves to the keeping of Gods Commandements if they will I see no reason but that the Law is able to give life though the Apostle supposeth the contrary and the way is as open unto man for justification by the workes of the Law as it was unto Adam in the state of innocency And if the Covenant of grace be universall and ever was for that I take to be this Authours meaning then God was no more the God of Abraham and of his seed then of all the World nether was the people of Israel more the Lords portion then any other Nation of the World yet Moses was sent unto Pharaoh in their behalfe with this Message Thus sayth the Lord Israell is my sonne my first borne wherefore I say unto thee Let my sonne goe that he may serve mee if thou refuse to let him goe Behold I will slay thy sonne even thy first borne Ex 4. 22 23. Thus God accounts them albeit they were miserably corrupted with Idolatry as it appeares Ez 20. 6. In the day that I lift up my hand upon them to bring them forth of the Land of Egypt 7. Then sayd I unto them Let every one cast a way the abominations of his eies and defile not your selves with the Idolls of Egypt for I am the Lord your God 8. But they rebelled against me and would not heare me for none cast away the abominations of their eyes neither did they forsake the Idolls of Egypt then I thought to poure out mine Indignation upon them and to accomplish my wrath against them in the midst of the Land of Egypt 9. But I had respect unto my name that it should not be polluted of the Heathen So he proceded in despite of their sinnes to carry them out of the Land of Egypt and brought them into the wildernesse and gave them Statutes and Judgments and his Sabaths v 10 11 12. But they rebelled against him in the Wildernesse whereupon he thought againe to poure out his indignation upon them in the Wildernesse to consume them v. 13. But he had respect unto his name v. 14. amd his eie spared them and would not destroy them v. 17. And againe when their Children provoked him by rebelling against him whereupon he thought of powring out his Indignation upon them v. 21. Neverthelesse he withdrew his hand and had respect unto his name v. 22. Then as touching the generation of that present time he professeth he will rule them with a mighty hand v. 33. And the issue thereof is no worse then this I will cause you to passe under the rod and bring you into the bond of the Covenant v. 37 And againe marke with what a gratious promise he concludes v. 43. There shall ye remember your wayes and all the workes wherein ye have been defiled and ye shall judge yourselves worthy to be cast of for all your evills which you have committed 44. And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have respect unto you for my names sake and not after your wicked waies nor according to your corrupt worke O yee house of Israel saith the Lord God Here is the peculiar fruit of the Covenant of grace to master their iniquities to bring them unto repentance and to deliver them from the dominion of sinne and Satan If God performe this Grace to all and every one throughout the World then is the Covenant of grace universall and all and every one are under it but if there be few very few over whom sinne hath not the dominion then certainly very few are under the Covenant of grace For the Apostle plainly signifyeth this to be the fruit of the Covenant of grace where he saith Sinne shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under grace Rom 6. 14. And the like we have Heb. 8. 8. I will make with the House of Judah a new Testament 9. Not like the Testament that I made with their fathers in the day that I tooke them by the hands to lead them out of the Land of Egypt For they continued not in my Testament and I regarded them not saith the Lord. 10. For this is the Testament that I will make with the House of Israell after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Lawes in their mind and in their heart I will write them and I will be their God and they shall be my people 11. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them 12. For I will be mercyfull unto their unrighteousnesse and I will remember their sinnes and their iniquities no more According to this Covnant proceed those gratious promises whereof the Scriptures are full I have seen his wayes and I will heale them Es 57. 18. I will heale their rebellions Hos 14. 5. The Lord will subdue our iniquities Mich. 7. I will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children to love me with all your heart and with all your soule Deut 30. 6. I am the Lord your God which sanctify you c And therefore these comforts which here are so much magnified as only and fully sufficient for the releeving of an afflicted soul in the hour of temptation are but so many lies to speake in the Prophets phrase that this Author holds in his right hand and if through the illusions of Satan he take hold of them they may cast him into a dreame like unto the dreame of an hungry man who eateth and drinketh and maketh merry but when he awaketh his soule is empty For all these comforts so magnificently set forth have no force save in case a man believe them now if a man believeth our doctrine can assure him of Everlasting Life and so of his election which the Arminian cannot For we teach that which our Saviour hath taught us He that believeth in the Son hath Everlasting Life and he that obayeth not the Sonne shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth upon him But as for the performing of faith they leave that unto man together with Gods concurrence And in like sort for the maintenance of their faith they teach a man to put
the Holy Ghost and that particularly consisting in opposing Gods truth or blaspheming it or making warre against it which I would this Author might be pleased well to consider before his feet be too much fastned in the mire and there be no getting out of it His second reason followeth 2. Because they convince the tempted that he cannot be in that condition in which he supposeth himselfe to be for two contradictoryes cannot be true This is no new reason at all but a meere application of the reason formerly delivered But this Author considers not how he marres his owne course of consolation casting his spirituall patient to believe hand over head things directly contradictory as namely that God wills the Salvation even of those whom he hath from everlasting ordayned unto damnation and is not his patient like to take much comfort in this speculation namely that albeit he be one of those whom God hathordained to condemnation yet he wills his Salvation What a poore comfort is it to conceive that though God will have him to be damned yet not inevitably whereas Gods will is as effectuall in bringing contingent things to passe contingently as in bringing necessary things to passe necessarily so raine to morrow is a contingent thing yet God can bring it to passe as infallibly though in a contingent manner as he brings to passe the rising of the sunne What comfort to a poore afflicted soule that though God wils his condemnation yet not absolutely but respectivly for these termes alone doe stand in proper oppositiō in the judgment of Arminians to wit that he will not damne him but for his sinne As for the consolation here ministred that God would have all and every one for unlesse it proceed in that sence it is nothing to the purpose to be saved redeemed and called to repent and believe this is full of collusion First in mixing many things together of a different nature For as for the two first that will they have to proceed meerly conditionally to wit in case they believe and repent manifestly implying that the divine gift of faith and repentance is no benefit of Christs redemption nor any of those good things which Christ hath merited for us Now as for the rest he was ashamed to professe in the same Tenor that God would have all to believe and repent but only called to believe and repent But seeing it is apparent that all are not called I presume this calling is to be understood also not absolutely but conditionally Now the condition thereof certainly is not faith and repentance but somewhat else which he expresseth not And is it not requisite the patient which is to be raised and releeved should be acquainted with this condition which yet is no where mentioned as I remember throughout this discourse But be it that God will have this poore soule to be saved and redeemed in case he believe and repent Unlesse God also willeth his faith and repentance what doore of hope or consolation is opened to the poore soule yet dwelling in the valley of Achor I wonder not a little what he meant to say only God we will have all to be called to believe and repent and not to speake home and say God will have all to believe and repent For what Doth he not indeed acknowledge faith repentance to be the gifts of God and if he doth give them did he not from everlasting will to give them will you give me leave to guesse at the mistery of his meaning in this Had he sayd God will have all to believe and repent as he sayeth God will have all to be saved and redeemed like as their meaning is well knowne as touching Gods will to save namely upon condition that condition also is well knowne to be faith and repentance In like sort had he sayd God will have all to believe and repent he saw belike this would have brought upon him more trouble then he would well brooke to wit by demanding whether God will have all to believe ond repent absolutely or conditionally Not absolutely I presume least so they should grant election unto faith repentance to be absolute Therefore they must be driven to shew upon what condition God will have men to believe repent that is upon that condition God doth bestow faith repentance upon men Now they are very loath to come to this But is it not fit that the soule which is to be comforted upon this ground should be throughly acquainted with this condition For it is a vain thing to discourse of a power in man to believe and repent and to say it is given them by the grace of God considering that the Scripture is not more pregnantly averse from countenancing any such power granted unto all as it is cleare it professeth faith and repentance to be the gift of God and consequently no man can exercise that pretended power without a farther grace whereby God gives faith it selfe and repentance it selfe and not only a power to believe and a power to repent Therefore it is very necessary for an afflicted soule that is to be comforted upon this ground to have this mistery revealed unto her namely upon what condition God will give one faith and repentance But this Author keepes himselfe close in this poynt and budgeth not for feare belike of discovering some mistery of iniquity on their part But whiles he conceales this doth he not play the part of a proper Mountebanke when he pretends the selling of Balme and soveraigne oyles when indeed he meanes only to juggle and collude with his spectators And there is good reason why he should conceale this or rather I doubt whether he that shewes himselfe on the stage herein is sufficiently acquainted with the mistery himselfe For whereas they cannot endure that God should absolutely dispense the grace of Faith and repentance to whom he will but upon a condition to be performed on mans part Hence it manifestly followes that the grace of faith and repentance is collated by God according to mens workes which is plain Pelagianisme and condemned above 1200 years agoe in the Synod of Palestine and in no Orthodoxe Synod or Councell reversed or retracted ever since Another reason there is of this concealement and that is to prevent the manifestation of the strange absurdity of their Tenet discoverable by the light of nature For the condition of Gods working faith and repentance in us is this modo nos velimus credere resipiscere as much as to say as many as will believe shall believe which is as true of the most sinfull act that is committed by man that God gives it in the same manner And more then this they dare not deny but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle is the gift of God but modo velimus whereby it comes to passe that the act of willing is the condition of it selfe and consequently both before and after it selfe And these shamefull
is capable of For their grounds are universall as they professe that is common to all to wit as touching the love of God that it is common to all as touching the death of Christ that he dyed for all as touching the Covenant of grace that it also is common to all And if this will comfort any man namely to be assured that he is in as good a case as any Turke or Saracen or any reprobate in the World I find this Author is ready to assure them hereof and rather then faile he will sweare it though I never heard matter of faith put to be tryed by mans Oath till now I had thought only matters of fact had been tryable and assurable by Oath not matter of faith Yet I will not spare to professe that though they should sweare either of these universalities to be true I would no more believe them then I would believe the Divell For the Apostle adviseth saying Though that wee or an Angell from Heaven Preach unto you otherwise then that which we have Preached unto you let him be accursed Gal 1. 8. But let us examine the comfortable nature of these universalities whether they be such as a sober man can say nothing to the contrary I begin with the universality of Gods love the comfort herehence proceeds thus as I conceive God loves all willes all to be saved therefore thou art no reprobate Now consider whether I may not soberly say to the contrary that by the same reason there is no reprobate in the World or ever was whence it followes that I have no more comfortable assurance that I am no reprobate then I have assurance that there is no Reprobate at all in the World Secondly would you have mee believe hand over head that God would have all to be saved without distinction may not I soberly inquire whether your meaning be that God will have all and every one to be saved whether they believe or no whether they repent or no or only thus That God will have all to be saved in case they believe and repent not otherwise Now this is our doctrine as well as yours grounded upon this Scripture Whosoever believeth shall be saved Now doth this doctrine assure any man that he is no Reprobate nor of the number of those whom God hath rejected from salvation Perhaps you will say it is sufficient to assure him that he is no absolute reprobate and that so this Author is to be understood though hitherto in this Section he delivered it simply Admit this Now judge I pray you whether I may soberly oppose against it thus Although I am no absolute reprobate yet if I am a reprobate and may be as much assured of it as that there is any reprobate in the World what comfort can arise to my poore afflicted soule from hence Againe consider that neither we who oppose Arminians doe maintaine that God hath ordained to deny any man salvation absolutely but only conditionally to wit in case he dye in sinne without faith without repentance But suppose I am perswaded that God hath rejected mee from the grace of faith and of repentance what comfort can you Arminians administer to my sick soule in this case For dare you deny faith and repentance to be a gift of God So then if I conceive my selfe to be a reprobate from grace will you comfort me by saying that I am no absolute reprobate from grace Then belike God hath determined to give or deny grace not according to the meere pleasure of his will but according to mens workes And have you no better balme of Gilead to administer to a sick soule then to take sanctuary in such a Doctrine as is direct and flat Pelagianisme In the same sober manner we shall have somewhat to say against that comfort that is reached forth to an afflicted soule from the universality of Christs death Thou doubtest thou art a reprobate but be of good cheere for Christ dyed for all and every one as much as to say thou hast no more cause to believe that thou art a reprobate then to believe that there is any reprobate in the world Secondly be of good cheere for albeit thou art a reprobate and God foreseeing thou wilt dye in sinne hath from everlasting ordained thee to condemnation as well a Judas that betrayed Christ yet I can assure thee thou art no absolute reprobate no more then Judas was And whereas it may be thou art verily perswaded that he that believes and repents and perseveres herein shall not be damned for as much as all confesse that God hath not ordained that damnation shall be inflicted absolutely according to the meere pleasure of God but meerely according to mens workes but all thy feare is least thou art reprobated from grace and that absolutely considering that God as it seemes in the giving and denying of grace proceeds meerely according to the meere pleasure of his will because the Apostle saith He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9. 18. Yet be of good cheere for I can assure thee that is nothing so but as there are no absolute reprobates from glory and unto damnation so there are no absolute reprobates from grace but meerely conditionally it is that men are reprobated from grace like as meerely conditionally God doth elect men unto grace And to speake in plaine termes without dissimulation God gives faith and repentance unto men according as they dispose themselves thereunto for want of which disposition he denyes it unto others And if thou desirest to be more particularly informed in this mistery for thine unspeakable consolation know for certain that if thou wilt believe and repent thou shalt believe and repent And albeit in the Synod of Palestine anno 415. it was concluded That grace is not given according unto merits and Pelagius was driven to subscribe thereto for feare of excommunication too in case he had refused it yet take this comfortable mystery along with thee that this was but a fruit of the Predestinarian Heresy which that very yeare if thou markest the story well had his originall and was brought forth into the World And lastly as touching the universality of the Covenant of grace that is as comfortable as the former for all are under it and therefore thou amongst the rest and consequently thou art no more a reprobate then any other certainly no absolute reprobate for there are none such Iudas was not and therefore thou maist assure thy selfe thou art not And indeed there are none that maintaine that God decreed that any man should be denyed glory or damned absolutely but only conditionally to wit in case he finally persevere in infidelity or impenitency And whereas thou maist feare least thou art absolutely reprobated from grace to wit from the grace of faith and repentance take heart and feare no colours For albeit it be fit to confesse considering the times that faith and repentance are the
desire and utter they know not what such distraction of mind and and perturbation of judgment shall surprize them A false perswasion that mens soules shall die with their bodies and that they shall have no being after death urgeth every man indifferently to take his delights and pleasures while he may whether this delight and pleasure be taken in courses vicious or in courses vertuous because death sets an end as to them so to their pleasures and delights But if their greatest happinesse or misery doth begin in joy or sorrow after death and this is well known unto them sober reason doth suggest unto them to provide for the obtaining of that happinesse and declining that unhappinesse above all other according to that Ladies resolution in Sophocles and that upon this ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there I shall continue for ever But when he saith the wicked will the more eagerly pursue their carnall and sinfull delights because after all their pleasures they shall be in a better case then if they had no being I long to have the judgment of any lewd person throughout the world concerning this as namely whether he takes any comfort or encouragement to sinfull courses from this that albeit he shall be cast with the devill and his Angells into hell fire that never goeth out Yet this condition is a better condition then not to have any being at all whereas this better condition consists only in this that being is better then not being not in this that he hath any ease or is lesse obnoxious to torment and sorrow which shall be so unsufferable as to provoke him to wish that he never had any being at all Or that forthwith he might be turned into nothing Secondly I oppose common consent Where shall we pick out a man but will say if he speak from his heart that he were better to vanish into a thou and nothings then to be cast into hell What is the reason why men are so afraid of hell when they are touched to the quick with the conscience of their ungodly lives and the expectation of eternall vengeance that with Job they curse their birthday and wish an hundred times over that they had never been or might cease to be that so they might not come into that place of torments because they judge a being there to be incomparably worse then no being any where And why are men who are sensible of hell fire so strongly curbd and held in with feare of feeling it even from dailing and beloved sinnes but because they apprehend it to be the most terrible of all terribles feare of being annihilated can never doe that which feare of hell doth And is he well in his wits that talkes of a thousand nothings I looked whereto it would come with such like wild discourses even to runne out of common sense at last Yet all this that he discourseth of for the substance of it is no other then Austine hath taken notice of in his very argument and shewes the vanity of it and the errour of man's imagination conceiving the condition of being nothing to be a condition of ease and rest from sorrow pain againe aske the same men whether they would not be content to be turned into dogges wolves snakes toades rather then to be under the torments of hell fire aske againe whether they would not be contēt to be turned into devills so they might be free from the torments of hell fire Aske the Adulterour whether he would not be content to lye with an other mans wife all his daies rather then to suffer shall I say the torments of hell fire Nay rather then dye possest of the joyes of heaven Aske this Authour whether he would not be content to maintaine stiffly that grace is given according to workes and that a man is justified by his workes rather then suffer the paines of hell fire yea though it were against his own conscience As for me were I a damned creature yet according to this judgment which God hath given me cōsidering that the glory of God's justice is manifested in my condemnation though extreamity of pain would transport me into as wild wishes as this Authour justifies yet according to right reason I should rather be content to suffer then wish that I were turned into a bruit beast or into a devill or into nothing I think the whole nation of sober divines would justifie me in this undoubtedly God is able to worke me or any man to this resolution without sin 2. If because men through feare of hell and expectation of eternall vengeance doe with Job curse their birth day once and wish they had never been therefore it is better to be nothing then to be in hell By the same reason because they doe no other then Job did it must follow that it was better for Iob to be nothing then to be under such torments But if Iob's desire was an unsober and unreasonable desire in this why might not their desire be as unsober and unreasonable also proceeding not so much from calme reason as from the strength of passion inflamed and disordered through extremity of torment We know that men upon the rack doe sometimes make confessions even against the light of their own consciences And feare of evill sometimes distracts as much as the sense thereof as in him who hearing the sentence of death passed against him at Paris fell into a sweat of blood And it was wont to be said that pejor est malo timor ipse mali Francis Spira in the time of his distraction confest as much of hell it selfe And if one desire once having course prove unreasonable why should the renewing of it a thousand times over prove lesse unreasonable And let the judicious observe the hand of God in striking this Authour with such giddinesse even in this argument which he conceives of all other to be advantagious to his cause so as at every turne to supplant himselfe and to betray the shamefull nakednesse of his discourse As first in talking of a thousand nothings Secondly In putting the case of some cursing their birth day but how as Iob did Now will any sober man make the like collection of Iob's cursing his birth day as this Author doth from others cursing theirs Thirdly and lastly in calling hell fire the terrible of all terribles Who seeth not that this proceeds in reference to such things which as they are feared soe they may be felt and supposing a subject existing as to feare it before it comes so to feele it when it is come but such is not the condition of being nothing And when he feignes us to conforme to his crude conceptions namely to conceive annihilation to be a thinge feared he pleaseth himselfe in his owne fictions He no where finds me to speake of annihilation as a thing to be feared no more then I speake of it as of a thing that is to be felt Onely I say
againe the word of God came to Semaiah the man of God saying speak to Rehoboā the son of Solomon King of Iudah unto all the house of Iudah Benjamin to the remnant of the people saying Thus saith the Lotd ye shall not goe up nor fight against your brethren the children ef Israel returne every man to his house for this thing is from me Here we have Gods word for it Who can deny that the hardening of Pharohs heart that he should not let Israel go the selling of Ioseph into Egypt by the hands of his unnaturall brethren came to passe by the will of God I proceed to prove the same truth by evidence of reasō First because God permits sin to come to passe as all confesse though he could hinder it if it pleased him that without all detriment to the free will of the creature why then doth he permit it but because he would have it come to passe accordingly permission is reckoned up by Schoole Divines amongst the sinnes of Gods will like as allso is Gods commandment Now what God commandeth if it be done it is said to come to passe by the will of God albeit the things that God commandeth seldome the things he permits allwayes come to passe according to the common tenet of Divines even Vostius Arminius not excepted Againe it is the common opinion of all that therefore God permits sin because he can and will worke good of it which plainly supposeth that sinne shall come to passe if God permits it consequently it must needes be the will of God it shall come to passe Thirdly it is granted on both sides that the act of sin is Gods worke in the way of an efficient cause not the outward act onely which is naturall but the inward act of the will which is morall even this as an act is the worke of God How can it be then but the deformity and vitiousnesse of the act must come to passe God willing it though not working it considering that the deformity doth necessarily follow the act in reference to the creatures working it though not in respect of Gods working it Lastly all sides agree that God can give effectuall grace whereby a man shall be preserved from sin infallibly Wherefore as often as God will not give this grace which is in his power to give doth it not manifestly follow that he will not have such a man preserved frō sin To these I added the testimony of divers as that of Austin Not any thing comes to passe unlesse Good will have it come to passe either by suffering it to come to passe or himselfe working it If good he workes it if evill permits it 't is true of each that he wills it cap. 96. It is Good saith Austin that evill should come to passe And Bellarmine himselfe so farre subscribes hereunto as by professing that It is good that evills shoul come to passe by Gods permission The same Austin confesseth that The perversity of the heart comes to passe by the secret judgment of God And againe that after a wonderfull and unspeakable manner even those things which are committed against the will of God to wit against the will of his commandment do not come to passe besides the will of God to wit the will of his purpose Anselme the most ancient of schoole Divines in his booke of the concord of foreknowledge with free will Considering saith he that what God willeth cannot but be when he wills that the will of mā shall not be constrained by any necessity to will or no and withall will have an effect follow the will of man In this case it must needs be that the will of man is free and that also which God willeth shall come to passe to wit by that will of man Now observe what in the next place he concludeth hence In these cases therefore it is true that the worke of sin which man will doe must needs be though man doth not will it of necessity And in his concord of predestination and free will In Good things God doth worke both that they are and that they are good in evill things he workes onely that they are not that they are evill Hugo de sancto Victore 1. De sacr 4. p. 13. When we say God willeth that which is good it sounds well but if we say God willeth evill it is harsh to eares neither doth a pious mind admit of the good God that he willeth evill for hereby he thinkes the meaning is that God loves and approves of that which is evill therefore the pious mind abhorres it not because that which is said is not well said but because that which is well said is not well understood To these I adde the testimony of Bradwardine at large A man reputed so pious in those dayes that the Kings prospe ous successe in those dayes was cheifly imputed unto his piety who followed him in his warres in France as Preacher in the camp In the last place I make answer to the Sophisticall arguments of Aquinas and Durandus and the frothy disputation of Valentianus all of them standing to maintaine the contrary Now let every sober Christian judge of this Authors proposition when he saith that If God doth will and procure sin c. he is worse then the Devill For I have made it evident by variety of Scripture testimonyes by reason and also with the concurrence of diverse learned Divines that it is Gods will that sin should come to passe even the horrible outrages committed against the holy sonne of God were before determined by Gods hand and counsell Now what followes herehence by this Authours dicourse but that the holy Apostles yea and the Spirit of God do make God worse then the Devill So little cause have we to be impatient when such horrible blasphemyes are layd to our charge when we consider what honourable compartners we have in these our sufferings Yet see the vanity of this consequence represented most evidently For albeit the will of Gods decree be powerfull effectuall and irresistable and consequently every thing decreed thereby shall come to passe powerfully effectually irresistibly yet this respects onely the generality of the things eveniency not the manner how For onely things necessary shall by this irresistible wil of God come to passe necessarily But as for contingent things they by the same irresistable will of God shall come to passe also but how not necessarily but contingently that is with a possibility of not comming to passe Now the free actions of men are one sort of contingent things They therefore shall infallibly come to passe also by vertue of Gods irresistible will but how Not necessarily but contingently that is with a possibility of not coming to passe in generall as they are things contingent And in speciall they shall come to passe not contingently onely but freely also that is with a free power in the
how this Authour chargeth our doctrine after the same manner was the doctrine of Austin charged above 1200 yeares agoe let the indifferent hereby take notice of the congruity of our doctrine with the doctrine of Austin in this particular and the congruity of this Authours spirit in charging us with the spirit of the Semipelagians in charging Austin after the same manner Secondly consider the objection there made t' is this Quod quando incestant Patres filias matres filios vel quando Servi Dominos occidunt ideo fiat quia ita Deus predestinavit ut fieret When father commit incest with their Daughters and mothers with their sonnes Or when servants kill their Lords therefore this comes to passe because God hath so predestinated that it should come to passe Consider in this objection the fault of these abominable courses is not layd upon those that commit them but onely upon God as if Gods predestination did worke in such a manner as to compell men or women to commit such and such abominations And so Prosper conceives the Argument to proceed as if this were their intention And accordingly makes answer Si Diabolo objiceretur quòd talium facinorum ipse Author ipse esset incentor were it objected to the Devill that he were the Authour of such sinnes and did inflame men to the committing of them which indeed is the Devills course and not Gods yet I thinke sayth he that the Devill might in some sort disburthen himselfe of this crimination talium scelerum patratores de ipsorum voluntate vinceret and make it appeare that their owne wills were the committers of such sinnes Quia etsi delectatus est furore peccantium probaret tamen se non intulisse vim criminum Because though he tooke pleasure in the fury of sinners yet might he justifie that he forced no man to sinne After the same manner proceeded the 11. objection of the Galles Quod per potentiam Deus homines ad peccata compellit God by his power compells men to sin And as touching the notion of predestination it is true the Antients used that onely in reference to those thinges which were wrought by God Nihil ergo talium to wit of wicked actions negotiorum Deus predestinavit ut fieret Predestination being onely of such things which come to passe by Gods working of them Yet the same Austin professeth that such things which come to passe by Gods permission of which kind are all manner of sinnes even those came to passe God willing thē though not by Gods predestinating of them And as touching Senacherib who was slaine by his owne sonnes the Lord professeth saying I will cause him to fall by the sword in his owne land And upon Amaziah the Priest of Bethel the judgment was pronounced from the Lord Thy wife shall be an harlot And whatsoever comes to passe it is Gods will it should come to passe sayth Austin how much more that which comes to passe in the way of judgment 2 I come to his second reason to examine whether he carryeth himselfe any thing more handsomly in that If God be the Authour of sinne he cannot be the punisher of sin This argument is better shaped then the former but forthwith he tells us that he cannot be in justice the punisher of that whereof himselfe is the Authour Wherein are two particulars neither of which were expressed in his argument the one is the application of it to the same sinne whereof he was the Authour which was not expressed in the Argument And without this application the Argument is of no force For earthly Magistrates are sinners yet the punishers of sinne in others yea of the same kind of sinne As though a Magistrate be a profaner of the name of God yet he may execute the law on them who doe profane the name of God and that justly Then what is it that makes a man the Author of sinne It is well knowne that though it be unlawfull for a man to permit sinne if it be in his power to hinder it yet unlesse God permit sinne it cannot be committed by any Nos certe saith Austin sieos in quos nobis potestas est ante oculos nostros perpetrare Scelera permittamus rei cum ipsis erimus Quam vero innumerabilia ille permitit fieri ante oculos suos quae utique si voluisset nullâ ratione permitteret Certainely if we suffer those over whom we have power to commit sinne we shall be guilty together with them But how innumerable are the sinnes which he suffers to be committed before his eyes which if he would he could hinder so that by no meanes they should cōe to passe Or is he the Authour of sinne who is the efficient cause of the act of sinne It is Aquinas his doctrine that the act of sinne is from God and that in the kind of an efficient cause and it is commonly received to be the first cause in the kind of efficients subordinate to none and all other subordinate to him Nay more then this Scotus professeth and after him the Dominicans that God determineth the will to every act thereof though sinfull as touching the substance thereof but how Surely no otherwise then to come to passe agreeably to their nature necessary acts necessarily free acts freely So Barwardine maintaines that God necessitates the will of the creatue but how To performe acts thereof freely Suppose they did maintaine that God in his omnipotency did impose a necessity upon our wills as Suarez imputes to our Divines that they so teach Yet in this case Suarez the Jesuite will justifie them that therein they deliver nothing that either doth include contradiction or that doth exceed God's omnipotency Neither did I ever meet any colour of reason why God might not as wholy determine the will to any free act thereof as concurre with the will to the producing of the same act And that in the concurrence of God and man to the same act the first cause should be in subordination to the second or the second cause not in subordination to the first is against all reason and obnoxious to manifold contradiction as I have shewed in my Vindiciae Whereas for God to move a creature to every act of his congruously to his nature and so to determine him is most agreeable to reason and nothing at all obnoxious to contradiction And yet notwithstanding I see noe sufficient reason to conclude these determinations as touching things naturall such as is the substance of every naturall act there being a power to performe that in a naturall Agent Of supernaturall acts the case is different It seemes to me enough that God will have this or that evill come to passe by his permission For when God created the world out of nothing what transient action of God can be imagined when there was no matter at all for any such transient action to worke upon God's will was sufficient
or ability at all in the issue of avoiding their sinnes but must of necessity commit them Thus they teach and therefore by just consequences they make God the Authour of sinne as it will plainly appeare by these following considerations Poets tell us there was a time when Giants on earth set themselves to fight against God in heaven because the place of his habitation was out of their reach they laid mountaine upon mountaine hill upon hill Pelion upon Ossa that so they might make their approaches unto him beseige him in his own fastnes this fable is a monumēt of the shipwrack of that truth among heathen-men which the Lord had preserved unto his Church upon record in his holy word For when after the great Deluge in the dayes of Noah men began to be multiplied upon the face of the earth they consulted how they might fortify themseves against the like inundation for the time to come and thereupon encouraged thēselves saying Goe to let us build us a City and a town whose top may reach unto the Heaven that we may get us a name least we be scattered upon the whole earth But how didthe Lord deale with these presumptuous adventurers The Poet 's faign that Iupiter destroyed them with his thunderbolts and as for one of them Typhoeus by name a proud fellow he laid him fast enough under the hill Aetna in Sicily where he breaths out smoak fire like the great Polan out of a Tobacco-pipe somewhat bigger then a good Caliver But the Scripture tels us how that for their saying Goe too let us build c. the Lord answered them with a Come on let us goe downe and there confound their language that every one perceive not one anothers speech This Author herhaps is but a Pygmie for bodily presence yet he may be a Gyant for his wit and found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight against God in a spirituall way in the opposing of his truth As Gamaliel sometimes advised the high Priest with his counsell to take heed lest they were found even fighters against God It is true this Author no doubt perswades himselfe that he fights for God in as much as he affects to free him from being the Author of sin But let not the simple Reader be deluded with shewes but seriously consider whither all this doe which he makes about the point of Reprobation doth not clearly tend to the overthrowing of God's free grace in election which is so much the more foule because he doth it underhand as conscious to himselfe of his owne impotency to impugne it openly or fearing the generall opposition of our Church against him therefore he practiseth to undermine it And this I have found to be his course divers years agoe in his private undertakings to draw proselytes unto him namely to decline the point of grace of election to deale only upon Reprobation and there to put his concurrent to begin as if he would have a young Divine to inform a Sexagenarian as I have seen under his own hand But see the hand of God upon him in confounding his language as when he stands for Reprobation evitable avoidable reproacheth his adversaries for maintaining Reprobation inevitable unavoidable This is the phrase of his Schoole For I do not remember to have met with it any where but in him his disciples Now what man of common sense doth not observe this phrase to be appliable only to things that are to come but of a contingent nature so that they may be avoyded declined but by no means apply able to things already done that more then many thousand years agoe For what sober man could heare with patience another discourse of the avoidable nature of Noah's flood now in these daies to maintain that it is at this day avoidable what fustian like to this Might he not as well take liberty to discourse of the Aequinoctiall pasticrust It was wont to be said that this alone God himself could not perform namely to cause that which is done to be not done As Aristotle in his Eth relates a saying of one Agatho to that purpose Now reprobation is confessed by all to be of the same age with election election was as the Apostle tels us performed by God before the foundation of the world And is not this Author then besides himself when he pleads for evitable avoydable Reprobation But albeit this Author makes the worst of our opinions and expressions yet I will not requite him by making the worst of his that were base inglorious and to be overcome I will therefore hearken to the Apostles counsell where he saith Be not overcome with evill but overcome evill with good I will make the best of his and according to the distinction of God's will used in Schooles as it is taken either quoad actum volentis or quoad res volitas as touching the act of him that willeth or the things willed So I will imagine that he speaks of Reprobation which is the will of God not as touching the act of God Reprobating making such a decree but as touching the thing decreed this thing decreed he will have to be of an avoidable nature Now this we willingly grant utterly deny that this any way hinders the absolutenes of God's decree We say with the 11 article of the Church of Ireland that God from all aeternity did by his unchangeable councell ordain whatsoever should in time come to passe yet so as hereby neither the contingency nor liberty of the second causes is taken away but established rather So that whereas we see some things come to passe necessarily some contingently so God hath ordained that all things shall come to passe that do come to passe but necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently that is avoidably with a possibility of not comming to passe For every University Scholar knows this to be the notion of contingency yet will not I content my selfe with the article of Ireland for this Aquinas thus distinguisheth For having proposed this question Whether the will of God doth impose a necessity upon the things willed To this question this Author with whom I deale would answer affirmatively saying it doth impose a necessity on all such things or at least obtrude such an opinion upon us himself undoubtedly thinks that in case Gods will be absolute it must cause a necessity upon all things willed therby both which are utterly untrue this last utterly denyed by Aquinas For first every will of God is absolute in the judgment of Aquinas which I prove thus That will which hath noe cause or reason thereof is absolute This proposition I presume this Authour will not deny But the will of God hath no cause in the judgment of Aquinas therefore every will of God is absolute by his doctrine Yet this absolute will of God imposeth not a necessity upon all things
for hereby many times men are drawen full sore against their wills to doe that which they would not It is true God's power cannot be resisted but neither hath any man any will to resist that motion of God whereby he workes agreable to their natures then indeed there were place for resisting If the Lord carrieth on a covetous person such as Achan to covet a wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment and coveting it move him accordingly to take it and convey it away secretly and hide it in his tent what resistance doth he make in all this Or what is done in all this lesse agreably to his covetous disposition then to the disposition of Toades and Addars when he moves them according to their nature to sting and poyson So he moved the Babylonians compared to Serpents and Cockatrices to sting a wicked people Doe not the Scriptures plainly professe that God did send them Is not Assur in this respect called the Rod of God's wrath and the staffe in his hand Was it not called the Lords indignation Is he not compared to an axe and a sawe shall the axe boast it selfe against him that heweth therewith Or shall the saw extoll it selfe against him that moveth it Still he confounds the act with the sinfulnesse thereof speaking of God's producing sinnes whereas sinne is never produced it being only an obliquity consequent unto the act of such a worker as is subject to a law And our Adversaries confesse that God is the cause of the act as well as we Yet will they not hereby be driven to professe that in producing the act he produceth the sin As for that which he speaks of Inforcing we may well pitty him that when he wants strength of reason he supplies that by phrases We deny that God inforceth any man's will Nay it is the generall rule of Schooles that voluntas non potest cogi the will cannot be forced We maintaine that every act of the will especially in naturall things such as a sinfull act must needs be for only gracious acts are supernaturall is not only voluntary which is sufficient to preserve it from being forced but free also by as much libertie as the creature is capable of only we deny that the will of man is primum liberum a first free agent that is the prerogative of God alone the first mover of all and the supreme Agent thus I have dispatched my answer to his first reason consisting of three parts I come unto the second Sect 4. If we could find out a King that should so carry himselfe in procuring the ruine and the offences of any Subjects as by this opinion God doth in the affecting of the damnation and transgressions of Reprobates we would all charge him with the ruine and sinnes of those his Subjects Who would not abhorre saith Moulin a King speaking thus I will have this man hangâ—d and that I may hang him justly I will have him murder or steale This King saith he should not only make an innocent man miserable sed sceleratum but wicked too and should punish him for that offence cujus ipse causa esset of which himselfe was the cause It is a cleare case Tiberius as Suetonius reports having a purpose to put some Virgins to death because it was not lawfull among the Romans to strangle Virgins caused them all to be deflouered by the hang-man that so they might be strangled Who will not say that Tiberius was the principall Authour of the deflouring of those Maides In like manner say the Supralapsarians God hath a purpose of putting great store of men to the second death but because it is not lawfull for him by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame he hath decreed that the Devill shall defloure them that afterwards he may damne them It followeth therefore that God is the maine cause of those their sinnes If a King should carry himselfe as God did in hardning Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe and when he had let Israel goe to harden his heart that he should follow after them we would acknowledge such a one not to be man but God And then surely whatsoever our Arminians would thinke of such a one we would thinke noe otherwise then Solomon did of him of whom he professed that he made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill If God doth but permit a man to will this or that necesse est saith Arminius it must needs be ut nullo argumentorum genere persuadeatur ad nolendum that noe kind of argument shall perswade such one to abstaine from willing it And I hope Arminius hath as great auhority with this Authour as Mr. Moulin deserves to have with us Noe King hath power to dispense any such providence as this St. Paul tells us plainly that God hath ordained some unto wrath and as he hath made of the same lumpe some vessells unto honour so hath he made other vessells unto dishonour The Lord professeth that he kept Abimelech from sinning against him Thus the Lord could deale with all if it pleased him Why doth he not is it not for the manifestation of his own glory For to this purpose he hath made all things And that he suffers with long patience vessells of wrath prepared to destruction And what to doe doth he suffer them But to continue and persevere in their sinfull courses without repentance the Apostle plainly tells us that it is to declare his wrath and make his power known This is not the voice of any Doctor of ours now a dayes but of St. Paul And shall Mr. Moulin be brought in to affront St. Paul For recompence let the Jesuits be heard to whom the nation of the Arminians are beholden for their principall grounds Wherefore doth God give effectuall grace unto one and not unto another but because he hath elected the one and rejected the other And I appeale to every sober Christian whether the absolutenesse of reprobation doth not as invincibly follow herehence as the absolutenesse of Election But touching Mr. Moulin I have heard that Doctor Ames somtimes wished that he had never medled in this argument I am not of Doctor Ames his mind in this though it were I thinke most fit every one should exercise himselfe in those questions wherein by the course of his studies he hath been most conversant so should the Church of God enjoy plus dapis rixae multo minus invidiaeque I doe admire Mr. Moulin in his conference with Cayer as also upon the Eucharist and on Purgatory he hath my heart when I read his consolalations to his Breathren of the Church of France as also intreating of the love of God I would willingly learne French to understand him only and have along time desired still to get any thing that he hath written I highly esteem him in his Anatomie though I doe not
good if he will but it inclines and disposeth the will unto vertuous actions So justice is not an indifferency of condition leaving it to man whether he will be just or noe but it makes him just and so disposoth him to just courses Againe if grace supernaturall doth only give power to believe if one will this being a free power it is indifferent as well not to believe as to beleive as well not to repēt as to repent For liberty is alwaies to act opposite whence it will follow that by vertue of supernaturall grace a man is disposed not more to faith then to infidelitie not more to repentance then to hardnesse of heart and Impenitency 4. Consider a man hath noe need of supernaturall grace to inable him to refuse to repent seing naturally he is sufficiently disposed hereunto necessarily by reason of that naturall corruption which is hereditary unto him By all this it is apparent that a power to believe wrought in a man by supernaturall grace is not a free power working freely but rather a necessary power working necessarily like unto the condition of a morall vertue which restraines man's naturall indifferency to good or evill and disposeth him only to good And consequently as many as maintaine no other power to be given unto man by grace then to believe if a man will they deale like Pelagians who called that which was meerly naturall prevenient grace Lastly if God be the Authour of man's conversion because he gives him power to convert if he will he may as well be called the Authour of non conversion and perseverance in sinne because God gives power not to convert and to persevere in sinne if he will 2. As touching the second If God be the Authour of man's conversion because he perswades thereunto then certainly he is not the Authour of sinne because he perswades not thereunto 3. If God be the Authour of conversion because he cooperates thereunto then certainly he may be as well said to be the Authour of every sinfull act For that he doth cooperate thereunto I am very confident this Authour will not deny Now I could earnestly entreate the Judicious Reader to examine well this Authour's opinion in these particulars and compare them with his former discourse that he may have a cleare way opened unto him to judge with what conscience he carried himselfe in his former discourse imputing unto us that we make God the Authour of sin albeit in treating of God's providence in evill we generally have the expresse word of God before our eyes and in our explication thereof doe rather qualify the seeming harshnesse thereof then aggravate it For undoubtedly by the tenour of his discourse looke upon what grounds he denies God to be the Authour of sinne he must withall deny God to be the Authour of faith of repentance of conversion And look upon what grounds he makes God the Authour of conversion upon the same grounds he must make God the Authour of sinne As in case to give power to believe if we will and to cooperate with us in the act of faith be to make him the Authour Or if only upon perswading us to believe God is said to be the Authour of faith then it followes as a sufficient Apologie for us that we make not God to be the Authour of sinne seing none of us conceive him to be a perswader of any sinfull act but rather a disswader and forbidder thereof and that upon paine of eternall damnation But on the contrary we make a vast difference between God's operations in sinfull actions and God's operations in actions gracious As first every sinfull act is alwaies within the compasse of acts naturall noe supernaturall act is or can be a sinne Now to the producing of any act of morality every man notwithstanding his corruption hath in him a naturall power But there is noe naturall power in man to the performing of an act supernaturall God must inspire him with a new life called in Scripture the life of God and make him after a sort partaker of the divine nature and give his own Spirit to dwell in him in such sort that being crucified with Christ we hence forth live no more but Christ liveth in us These supernaturall acts are but few according to the three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope Charity whose offsprings they are the love of God to the contempt of our selves hope in God to the contempt of the world as touching the worst it can doe unto us and faith in God to the quenching of the fiery darts of the devill As for all other good acts in the producing of them God hath a double influence one common as they are acts naturall touching the substance of them another speciall as touching the gracious nature of them proceeding from faith and love But as touching evill acts he hath noe influence in the producing of them but that which is common and to the substance of the acts none at all as touching the evilnesse of them the reason whereof is that which was delivered by Austin long agoe Malū non habet causam efficientem sed deficientem Evill hath no cause efficient but deficient only And it is impossible that God should be defective in a culpable manner The creature may the Creatour cannot And the ground of the creatures defective condition is accounted to be this that he was brought out of nothing consequently of a fraile condition And it is received generall as a rule in Schooles that a creature cannot be made impeccabilis per naturam that is such a one as by nature cannot sinne This was delivered long agoe by Anselme one of the first of School-divines In evill things God doth worke quod sunt that they are non quod mala sunt not that they are evill But in good things God doth worke Et quod sunt quod bona sunt both that they are and that they are good Here this Authour sets down our opinion concerning Election and Reprobation at his pleasure We say with Austin that predestination is the preparation of grace that is the Divine decree of conferring grace And both he and all confesse it is also the decree of conferring glory And because in making of this decree God had respect unto some only not to all both men and Angells therefore in this consideration it is called the decree of Election in distinction from the decree of reprobation Now this grace is of a double nature for either it is grace custodient from sinne and the decree of granting this was the election of Angells called in holy Scripture The elect Angells or grace healing after men have sinned and the decreee of granting this is the election of men commonly in Scripture called God's Elect in reference unto this It is farther to be observed that Austin grounds the Orthodoxe doctrine of predestination and election upon the Orthodoxe doctrine concerning grace And the absolutenesse of the one he
of Adrumetum were the Authours of it And this Interpolatour takes Vossius his part and labours by certaine arguments to make it good against he judicious observations of that most reverend and learned Arch-Bishop of Armagh It may be I shall represent my answer thereunto by waâ—â—â— digression but first I must dispatch my answer to this I have in hand Sect 6. Many distinctions are brought to free the Supralapsarian way from this crimination all which me thinks are noâ— better then mere delusions of the simple and inconsiderate and give noe true satisfaction to the understanding There is say they a twofold decree 1. First an operative by which God positively and efficaciously worketh allthings 2. A permissive by which he decreeth only to let it come to passe If God should worke sinne by an operative decree then he should be the Authour of sinne but not if he decree by a permissive decree to let it come to passe and this only they say they maintaine It is true that God hath decreed to suffer sinne for otherwise there would be none Who can bring forth that which God will absolutely hinder He suffered Adam to sinne leaving him in the hand of his own counsell Ecclus 15. 14. He suffered the nations in time past to walke in their own waies Act 14. 16. And dayly doth he suffer both good and bad to fall into many sins And this he doth not because he stands in need of sinne for the setting forth of his glory for he hath noe need of the sinfull man Ecclus 15. But partly because he is summus provisor supreme moderatour of the world and knoweth how to use that well which is ill done and to bring good out of evill and especially for that reason which Tertullian prelleth namely because man is made by God's own gracious constitution a free creature undetermined in his actions untill he determine himselfe And therefore may not be hindred from sinning by omnipotency because God useth not to repeale his own ordinances 2. It is true also that a permissive decree is noe cause of sinne because it is merely extrinsecall to the sinner and hath noe influence at all upon the sinne It is an antecedent only and such a one too as being put sinne followeth not of necessitie And therefore it is fitly contradistinguisht to an operative decree And if that side would in good earnest impute noe more in sinfull events to divine power then the word Permission imports their maine conclusion would fall and the controversy between us end But first many of them reject this distinction utterly and will have God to decree sinne efficaciter with an Energeticall and working will Witnesse that discourse of Beza wherein he a verreth and laboureth to prove that God doth not only permit sinne but will it also And witnesse Calvin too who hath a whole section against it calling it a carnall distinction invented by the flesh and effugium a mere evasion to shift off this seeming absurdity that that man is made blind Deo volente jubente by Gods will and command who must shortly after be punished for his blindnes He calleth it also figmentum a fiction and saith they doe ineptire play the fooles that use it By many reasons also doth he indeavour to lay open the weaknes of it taxing those who understand such Scriptures as speaks of God's smiting men with a Spirit of slumber and giddinesse of blinding their minds infatuating and hardening their hearts c. Of a permission and suffering of men to be blinded and hardned Nimis frivola est ista solutio saith he it is too frivilous a glosse In another place he blameth those that referre sin to God's prescience only calling their speeches argutiae tricks and quirks which Scripture will not beare and those likewise that ascribe it to God's permission and saith what they bring touching the Divine permission in this businesse will not hold water They that admit the word permissive doe willingly mistake it and while to keep of this blow they use the word they corrupt the meaning For 1. Permission is an act of God's consequent and judiciary will by which he punisheth men for abusing their freedome and committing such sins day by day as they might have avoided and to which he proceedeth lento gradu slowly and unwillingly as we may see Psal 81. 11. 12. Israel would none of me so I gave them up c. Ezeh 18. 39. Goe and serve every one his Idoll seeing ye will not obey me c. Rom 1. 21. 24. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God therefore God gave them up unto their hearts lusts to vile affections and to a Reprobate mind Rev. 22. 11. He that is unjust let him be unjust still In these places and many more we may see that persons left to themselves are sinners only and not all sinners but the obstinate and willfull which will by noe meanes be reclaimed But the permission which they meane is an act of God's antecedent will exercised about innocent men lying under no guilt at all in God's eternall consideration 2. Permission about whomsoever it is exercised obstinate sinners or men considered without sinne is no more then a not hindring of them from falling that are able to stand supposeth a possibility of sinning or not sinning in the parties permitted but with them it is a withdrawing or withholding of grace needfull for the avoiding of sin and so includeth an absolute necessitie of sinning For from the withdrawing of such grace sin must needs follow as the fall of Dagon's house followed Sampson's plucking away the Pillars that were necessary for the upholding of it Maccovius in two disputations expounding this word Permission circumscribes it within two acts The first of which is a Substraction of Divine assistance necessary to the preventing of sinne And having proved it by two arguments that none may thinke he is alone in this he saith that he is compassed about with a cloud of witnesses and produceth two The first of them is our reverend and learned Whitaker some of whose words alleadged by him are these Permission of sinne is a privation of the aid which being present sinne would have been hindred The second is Pareus for saying that that helpe which God withdrew from Adam being withdrawen Adam could not soe use his endowments as to persevere And this doctrine saith he is defended by our men as it appeareth out of Pareus lib de grat primi hominis c. 4 p. 46. Their permission therefore of sinne being a substraction of necessary grace is equivalent to an actuall effectuall procuring and working of it For Causa deficiens in necessariis est eficiens a deficient cause in things necessary is truely efficient and so is but a mere fig-leafe to cover the foulenesse of their opinion Here we have a very demure discourse proceeding in a positive manner proceeding from one that takes upon him to
God willing it he denies not any more then Beza doth that it comes to passe by God's permission of it But Calvin rests not in a bare permissions and no marvaile For the Scripture saith not that God permitted Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel goe but plainly and energetically thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall not let Israel goe I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall follow after them I will rent the Kingdome from Solomon not I will permit it to be rented and so throughout Bellarmine himselfe contents not himselfe with a bare permission but farther saith God doth rule and governe the wills of wicked men yea torquet flectit he wrests and bends them And Austin often saith he enclines them unto evill And whereas it is farther added out of Calvin that a man is blind volente jubente Deo God willing and commanding it Is it not expresse Scripture Es 6. 10. Make the heart of this people fat make their eares heavy and shut their eyes So that Calvin doth but accomodate himselfe to Scripture phrase But when we come to the explication of this either in Christian reason or by comparing one place of Scripture with an other we say that to Make their hearts fat their eares heavy and to shut their eys And to give them the Spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see and eares that they should not heare Is no more then not to give them hearts to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare Yet where Calvin saith this I cannot find the quotation here is so disturbed but I guesse the Authour would referre us to lib. 1. Institut cap. 18. prima secunda Sect But I find no such thing there but speaking of God's providence in blinding Ahab thus he writes Vult Deus perfidum Ahab decipi God will have perfidious Ahab to be deceived This is plaine out of the 1 Kings 22. 20. Who shall entise Ahab that he may goe and fall at Ramoth Gilead operam suam offert Diabolus ad eam rem The Divell offers his service for this saith Calvin And doth not the Scripture expresly testifie as much There came forth a Spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will entise him And the Lord said unto him wherewith And he said I will goe out and be a false Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets Calvin goes on Mittitur cum certo mandato ut sit Spiritus mendax in ore omnium Prophetarum God sends him with a certaine command to become a lying Spirit in the mouth of all Ahab's Prophets This also the Scripture testifies as expresly as the former Then the Lord said thou shalt entise him and prevaile also Goe forth and doe so Now let the indifferent judge whether this Authour might not as well calumniate the Holy Ghost the Inditer of this Scripture as Calvin who proceeds but according unto Scripture in that which he delivers Now let every sober man judge whether hereby it doth not manifestly appeare Excoecari Achabum that Ahab was blinded by the Devill Deo volente ac jubente the Lord willing and commanding it but this taken apart from the instance in reference whereunto it is delivered a man might suspect his meaning were that God commands a man to shut his own eyes blind himselfe And judge I pray whether to say that this whole providence of God concerning Ahab was no more then permission deserves not to be called figmentum a fiction as indeed Calvin calleth it To this he addes the joynt profession of the Apostles touching God's providence in crucifying of Christ in Absalom's incest the Chaldees bloudy execution in the land of Iuda and the Assyrians before them which in Scripture is called the worke of God c. And concludes it to be manifest Nugari eos ineptire qui in locum providentiae Dei nudam permissionem substituunt that they doe but toy and trifle who in place of God's providence substitute a naked permission And this Authour doth but calumniate Calvin's expression in rendring the word ineptire by playing the foole Ineptire in the proprietie thereof is in this case to faile of fit and congruous interpretation and accommodation And may he not justly taxe those who understand such Scriptures as speake of God's smiting men with the Spirit of slumber and giddinesse of blinding their mindes infatuating and hardning their hearts of a permission and suffering of men to be blinded and hardned I had thought common sense might have justified him in this taking Calvin aright who denies not permission in all this but nudam permissionem naked permission as much as to say these Scripture passages doe signifie more then permission And as I have said before Bellarmin himselfe doth not satisfie himselfe with a naked permission in such like providence divine as here is mentioned I thinke he may justly say that to explicate excecation and obduration by permission is such an explication as will satisfie no sober man and that such a solution is too frivolous And as for God's prescience it is apparent that the horrible outrages committed upon the holy Son of God the Scripture testifies not to have been foreknowen only by God but by the hand and counsell of God predetermined also more then this cleare reason doth justifie that the ground of God's foreknowing ought is his foredetermining of it as I have often proved by invincible demonstration 2. Who mistakes the nature of permission most we or this censurer let the indifferent judge It is apparent that he puts no difference between permission humane and permission Divine Sure I am Suarez requires to permission divine a concurrence to the act the obliquity whereof is permitted And more then that both Scotus of old without question and the Dominicans of late and Bradwardine before them maintaine this concurrence to be by way of determining the will to every act thereof But all these mistake the nature of permission if we believe this Authour upon his word wherein he carrieth himselfe very authoritatively no Pope like him Yet he is ready to give his reason for it though with manifest contradiction to himselfe but let us consider it 1. Permission is an act of God's consequent and judiciary will by which he punisheth men for abusing their freedom c. Most untrue and manifestly convictable of untruth by that which himselfe delivered but a little before in this very Section where he said It is true that God hath decreed to suffer sinne for otherwise there would be none By this it is manifest that whensoever sinne is committed there had place God's permission of sinne otherwise there would have been no sinne therefore permission had place in the very first sinne that was committed by man and Angells Judge Reader with what felicity he comes to censure and correct the mistakes of others about permission As Austin sometimes said of one opposing him noverit se esse
is in his power or when he hath authority to forbid 't is as if he should command the committing of that sin Now this is only in such a case where the necessitie respects the person who is the deficient cause as namely in case he be bound in duty to afford help and succour to him that cannot keepe himselfe from sinning without the succour of an other not otherwise And therefore it reacheth not to God who is not bound to preserve any man or creature from sinning Least of all is he bound to regenerate a man that is borne in sinne Adam was created in all sufficiency that the reasonable creature was capable of without any pronenes unto evill but rather in a morall propension to that which was good And his fall hath brought this corruption upon all mankind even a necessitie of sinning as Arminius and Corvinus confesse He wanted no power to doe that which was good or to abstaine from sin but ever since his fall impotency to that which is good pronenesse unto that which is evill hath been the naturall inheritance of all mankind And as for the permission of Adam's fall his sin was in a thing naturally indifferent the holines of his nature not inclining him more to abstain from that fruit any more then to partake of it Neither doe we say that God did withhold from Adam any grace that these our adversaries maintaine to be necessary for the avoiding of that sinne which was committed by him How Adam himselfe was brought by Eve to eate of that fruit is not expressed As for Eve the temptation which Satan used with her which did prevaile is expressed He allured her with the representation of the powerfull nature of that to make them as Gods knowing good and evill he made this seem credible by the very denomination which God gave unto the Tree the Tree of knowledge of good and evill It seemes not likely that she knew who it was that spake unto her in the Serpent nor that she was acquainted with the fall of Angells Then againe the desire of knowledge is no evill thing it selfe or stands in any contradiction to the integrity of a reasonable creature Nay nothing more agreeable to the nature of the best it brings such a perfection with it Only the errour was in affecting it this way God did not keep the Devill off nor reveale unto her who it was that spake unto her much lesse his apostaticall condition least of all his project to supplant them Neither did he quicken that holy feare which he had inspired into her to resist it at the first to goe to her husband to acquaint him with it She might thinke that the knowledge of good and evill might make her more fit for the service of God then unfit All which considered her will being moved to seek this perfection by tasting of such a fruit there was no cause or reason to hinder her from tasting it save only the consideration of God's prohibition For the will of every reasonable creature is naturally apt to affect that which is good and though that good may prove evill in some circumstance yet if that circumstance be not considered the will proceeds to affect it How long the Devill was exercised in this temptation we know not Inconsideration is conceived by Durandus to be the originall of that sinne of theirs and God was not bound to maintaine this consideration quick in her and of the danger of such a transgression In fine she came to a will resolution to tast of it to the producing of this act as a naturall thing the Lord concurred as all confesse namely to the substance of the act The question is whether he concurred to the effecting of it absolutely or conditionally It was as true of Adam and Eve that in him they lived and moved and had their being as it is of us We say God as a first cause moves every second cause but agreeably to their natures Necessary agents to worke every thing they worke necessarily Free agents to doe every thing they doe freely But to say that God made them velle modo vellent to will in case they would will is so absurd as nothing more The act of willing being hereby made the condition of it selfe and consequently both before and after it selfe See what I have delivered concerning this in my Vindiciae lib. 2. Digr 3. and Digr 6. of the nature of permission more at large where unto this Authour is content to answer just nothing Sect 7. There are two things say they in every ill act First the materiall part which is the substance of the action Secondly the formall part which is the evill or obliquitie of it God is the Authour of the action it selfe but not of the obliquitie and evill that cleaveth to it as he that causeth a lame horse to goe is the cause of his going but not of his lame going And therefore it followeth not from their opinion that God is the Authour of sinne First all sinnes receive not this distinction because of many sins the acts themselves are sinfull as of the eating of the forbidden fruit and Saul's sparing of Agag and the fat beasts of the Amalekites Secondly It is not true that they make the decree of God only of actions not of their aberrations For they make it to be the cause of all those meanes that lead to damnation and therefore of sinfull actions as sinfull and not as bare actions For actions deserve damnation not as actions but as trangressions of Gods law 3. To this simile I say that the Rider or Master that shall resolve first to flea his horse or knock him on the head and then to make him lame that for his halting he may kill him is undoubtedly the cause of his halting And so God if he determine to cast men into hell and then to bring them into a state of sinne that for their sinnes he may bring them to ruine we cannot conceive him to be lesse then the Authour as well of their sins as of those actions to which they doe inseperably adhere and that out of Gods intention to destroy them This distinction of that which is materiall and that which is formall in sinne is commonly used by Aquinas 1. secun q 71. art 6 in corp Augustinus in definitione peccati posuit duo Unum quod pertinet ad substantiam actûs humani quod est quasi materiale in peccato cum dicit dictum vel factum vel concupitum Aliud autem quod pertinet ad rationem mali quod est quasi formale in peccato cum dixit contra legem aeternam So then the substance of the act is the materiall part in sinne And the opposition of this act to the law of God is the formall part of it both according to Aquinas and according to Austin also And q 75. art 1. corp He defineth sinne to be Actus inordinatus
That which necessitateth the will to sinne is as truly the cause of sinne as that which forceth it because it maketh the sinne to be inevitably committed which otherwise might be avoided and therefore if the Divine decree necessitate man's will to sinne it is as truly the cause of sinne as if it did inforce it 3. That which necessitates the will to sinne is more truly the cause of the sinne then the will is because it overruleth the will and beareth all the stroke taketh from it ' its true liberty by which it should be Lord of it selfe and disporser of ' its own acts and in respect of which it hath been usually called by Philosophers and Fathers too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power which is under the insuperable check and controule of no Lord but it selfe It overruleth I say maketh it become but a servile instrument irresistably subject to superiour command and determination And therefore is a truer cause of all such acts and sins as proceed from the will so determined then the will is For when two Causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one a principle overruling cause the other but instrumentall and wholly at the Devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it We shall find it ordinary in Scripture to ascribe the effect to the principall Agent It is not ye that speak saith Christ but the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you I laboured more abundantly then they all yet not I but the grace of God which was in me And I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me saith St. Paul Gal 2. 20. In these and many other places the effect or work spoken of is taken from the instrument and given to the principall agent Which being so though man's will worke with God's decree in the commission of sinne and willeth the sin which it doth yet seing what the will doth it doth by the commanding power of God's Allmighty decree and so it doth that otherwise it cannot doe the sin committed cannot so rightly be ascribed to man's will the inferiour as to God's necessitating decree the superiour cause 4. That which makes a man sinne by way of necessitie that is with and not against his will is the cause of sin in a worse manner then that which constraineth him to sinne against his will As he which by powerfull perswasions drawes a man to stab to hang to poison himselfe is in a grosser manner the cause of that evill and unnaturall action then he that by force compells him because he maketh him to consent to his own death And so if Gods decree doe not only make men sin but sin willingly too not only cause that they shall malè agere doe evill but malè velle will evill it hath the deeper hand in the sinne God determines the will to sinne by necessitie though not by compulsion this he obtrudes upon our Devines as their opinion but quotes none is it likely that he who quotes Beza to shew that in his opinion God doth not only permit sinne but will sinne And Calvin to shew that a man's mind is blinded volente jubente Deo would not quote some or other of our Divines to prove that which he obtrudes upon them If his common place booke could afford him any such quotation out of any one of them to shew who they be and where they say that God determines the will to sinne by necessity though not by compulsion Was there ever the like crimination made against any without naming them that say so and the place where and their own words Or hath this man or any of his spirit deserved any credit to be trusted this way The very phrase of determining in Latine is no word of course with our Divines in this argument It is the phrase of the Dominicans But doe they say that God determines the will to sinne I doe not thinke he can produce one of them that expresseth himselfe so unscholastically so absurdly Alvarez saith that God by his effectuall decree predetermineth second causes to worke He saith that God doth predetermine the will to the act of sinne as it is an act That the first root of contingency is the will of God Then to what doth God determine the will in their opinion Is it to the act only and not to the manner of its production Namely to produce it voluntarily and freely Nothing lesse though this Authour counts it his wisdome to conceale this God by his omnipotency doth cause that man whose heart he moves to will and will freely Againe God's generall concourse is a divine immediate influence into second causes whereby they are foremoved applyed and determined to worke every one according to the condition of its nature The naturall cause naturally the free cause freely as I have professedly delivered Disput 18. 23. And that in such sort freely as they can choose to doe otherwise if they will and that in the very instant wherin they doe what they doe But come we to consider his answer 1. Touching that which he saith of the Ancients he gives us his bare word for it as touching the confounding of necessitie and compulsion yet Bernard I confesse willingly in talking of liberty from necessity understands by necessity coaction He saith farther that those Ancients did deny that God did necessitate men to sinne least they should grant thereby that God is the Authour of sinne But I doe not thinke he can shew this phrase of necessitating the will any way to be found among the Ancients what he hath touched before I have considered what he shall intimate hereafter I hope I shall not let it passe unsaluted And the truth is to necessitate hath such an Emphasis with it as to perswade that whatsoever a man is necessitated to do that he doth by constraint against his will And it is a rule commonly received that Voluntas non potest cogi The will cannot be forced which is most true as touching Actus eliciti the acts of the will inward and immediate and not so of actus imperati acts outward and commanded But Bradwardine who alone useth this phrase among'st School-Divines takes it in no such sense but only for an effectuall operation of God upon the will moving it to worke this or that not necessarily but freely which this Authour most judiciously dissembleth all along for desparing to prevaile by true and substantiall information of the understanding perturbundis affectibus suffuratur by a corrupt proposition of his Adversaries tenet hopes to worke distast upon the Readers affections Bradwardines position is this God can after a sort necessitate every created will to ' its free act and to a free cessation vacation from act and
men devise God and man to move to the producing of the same act as two men in lifting a timber logge most indecently And to free this concurrence from chance they say sometimes that God workes this or that act in us modo velimus that is upon condition that we will But when they consider that God workes the act of willing as well as ought else are demanded to answer upon what condition he workes this what condition will they devise of this will he say modo velimus provided that we will As much as to say God will produce the act of willing provided that it be produced already by us Others say that God foreseeing that the will of man at such a time will produce such an act of willing in case God be pleased to concurre to the producing of it hereupon he resolves to concurre to the producing of it whereby the finall resolution is rather into the will of God then into the will of the creature I say the finall resolution of every sinfull act committed by the creature Secondly here is devised a thing future without all ground For whereas the act of willing as for example in Iudas the act of willing to betray his Master is it in ' its own nature merely possible not future how then did it passe into the condition of a thing future and that from everlasting For from everlasting God knew it as a thing future this could not be done without a cause And what cause could there be of an eternall effect but an eternall cause which is God alone And in God nothing can be devised to be the cause thereof but his will or decree Therefore to avoid this they must be driven to conclude that all future things became future by necessitie of nature if not of their own nature yet at least by the necessitie of God's nature he producing them all not freely but by necessitie of nature This is that Atheisticall necessitie whereupon our Adversaries are cast while they oppose such a necessitie as depends upon God's decree ordaining all things to come to passe agreably to their natures necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently and accordingly ordaining necessary causes working necessarily for the producing of the one and contingent causes working contingently for the producing of the other as Aquinas discourseth 1. pag q. 19 in the Article whose title is this Utrum divina voluntas necessitatem rebus imponat whether the will of God imposeth a necessitie on things that come to passe in the world The reason this Authour brings is a mere Socysme saying the same over and over againe As when he saith For when two causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one principall overruling cause the other but an instrumentall wholly at the devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it To which I answer that which he calls overruling I have often shewed how absurdly it is imputed unto us For how can that be called overruling which workes not the will contrary to ' its nature but moves it only agreably to the nature thereof As for the cause principall what Scholar of any braines ever denyed God to be the cause principall in any action to the producing whereof he concurres For is he not the first cause and the first Agent Are not all other second causes and second Agents But this Authour hopes his Reader will understand this in reference only to the sinne not to the naturall act under it whereas God as touching the sinfullnesse of it is no Agent at all much lesse a prime Agent no cause at all much lesse a prime cause Then secondly let God never so effectually work any creature to the producing of an act connaturall thereunto yet if he works the creature therunto agreably to its nature that is if it be an necessary Agent moues it to worke necessarily if it be a contingent agent moves it to worke contingently if it be a free agent moves it to worke freely then by Arminius his confesion our cause is gained For God shall be found free from blame and the creature void of excuse Now this is clearly our doctrine and in effect the doctrine of all them who say that God determines the will as the Dominicans or that God necessitates the will as Bradwardine For they all acknowledge hereby that God moves the creature to worke freely in such sort that in the very act of working they might doe otherwise if they would They confesse this providence of God is a great mystery and not sufficiently comprehensible by humane reason Cajetan professeth thus much as before alleadged and Alvarez maintaines it in a set disputation And supposing God's concourse as necessarily required to every act of the creature they are able to prove by evident demonstration that no other concourse can be admitted then this whereby God moves every creature and that effectually to every act thereof but agreably to ' its nature and condition And this is farther demonstrated by God's fore knowledge of things future Another Arminian with whom I have had to deale in this argument being pressed with this reason drawen from God's foreknowledge and urged to shew how things possible became future that from everlasting for from everlasting they were known to God as future had no way to helpe selfe but by flying to the actuall existence of all things in eternity And I have good ground for strong presumption that this Authour with whom now I deale had his hand in that Pye which was above foure yeares agoe See the desperate issue of these mens discourses who are drawen to take hold of such a Tenet to helpe themselves withall which their best freinds the Jesuites the Authours of Scientia media doe utterly disclaime And on the other side the Dominicans who embrace the actuall existence of all things in eternity are utterly repugnant to the doctrine of Scientia media So that when the Jesuites are reconciled to the Dominicans in the point of actuall existence of all things in eternity And the Dominicans to the Jesuites in the point of Scientia media then these men with whom I deale are like to prevaile which I doubt will hardly be before Elias comes Thirdly consider if when one cause is principall overruling the other the effect must be imputed rather to the principall then to the other It followes evidently that when the causes doe equally concurre without any such overruling of one the other then the effect is equally imputable unto each consequently the sin For such is this Authour's language in this Argument is equally imputable to both to God as well as man And he is to be accounted the Author of it as well as man I appeale to every man's
sober conscience that is able to judge indifferently between us in this But if to avoid this they deny that the concurrence is equall but that God's concurrence is conditionall to wit in case the creature will and so man is to be accounted the Authour of sinne and not God hence it followeth that seeing God's concurrence unto the act of faith and repentance is of the same nature in the opinion of these men God is not the Authour of faith and repentance any more then he is the Authour of sinne in the language of these disputers Or if they fly not to this as I have found this Authour as I guesse to deny God's concourse to stand in subordination to man's then my former argument is not avoided But a third reason ariseth herehence against his former discourse of God's concourse namely that if God and man doe equally concurre unto the act of sinne then as I have already shewed that they are equally guilty of sin So in the working of faith and repentance man is as forward as God and as much the Authour of his own fatih and repentance as God is in direct contradiction to the Apostle who saith that Faithis the guift of God not of our selves We willingly grant that God is the principall agent in producing every act whether it be naturall or supernaturall For in him we move as well as in him we live have our being But we deny sin as sin to be any act but a privation of obedience to the law of God as the Apostle defines it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet let us examine that which he delivers of the principall agent the texts produced by him that we may not be carried away as he is with a superficiary apprehension of things And first consider we might plead as well for such acts as this Authour calls sins as he doth for acts gracious by his superficiary discourse For doth not Ioseph comforting his brethren say unto them in like manner Now then you sent me not hither but God But consider farther in that passage alleadged by him out of Mat 10. 20. It is not ye that speak but the spirit of my Father which speaketh in you Was not this speech of the Apostles a free action The labour of Paul more abundantly then of all the rest of the Apostles was it not a free action in Paul â—f God determined theÌ„ unto these actions then freedome of will humane stands not in opposition to determination divine and consequently though the act be evill that is done by man yet may God determine the creature to the doing of that act without any impeachment of the creatures liberty If God did not determine the wills of his Servants but only afford a simultaneous concourse to their actions why is he called the cause principall since it is confessed God doth afford the like concourse to every sinfull act as touching the substance thereof Againe he repeates the same when in case of divine determination he saith the sinne cannot be so rightly ascribed to man's will the inferiour as to God's necessitating decree the superiour cause To which I answer againe being drawen thereunto by his Tautologies by the same reason it may be inferred that when the fire burnes any combustible thing the burning is rather to be ascribed to God the more principall cause then to the fire the lesse principall the first cause being more principall then the second and if it please God so to order it the fire shall not burne as it appeares in the three noble children cast into the furnace of Babylon when they came forth there was not so much as the smell of fire upon them Secondly I answer as before by the same reason when the concourse unto the sinfull act is equall on man's part on God's each shall equally be accounted the Authour of that sinne and not man more then God Now such a concourse is maintained by this Authour Thirdly in the working of faith and repentance since by these mens opinions God affords only his concourse he shall be no more the Authour of man's faith and repentance then man himselfe is Lastly be it granted that God is a more principall cause then maÌ„ in producing the act yet there is no colour of imputing unto God the causality of the sin who hath no Agency therein by doing what he ought not to doe or not in that manner he should doe this is found only in the creature who being a free Agent otherwise then as originall sinne hath impaired liberty which I hope this Authour will not deny is justly answerable for his own transgression As for example God determined that Cyrus should give the Jewes liberty to returne into their own land yet this action of Cyrus was as free an action as any that was performed by him throughout his life God determined that Josiah should burne the Prophets bones upon the Altar at Bethel yet Iosiah did this as freely as ought else God determined that Christ's bones should not be broken yet the souldiours abstained from the breaking of his bones with as much liberty as they had used in case they had broken them This divine providence we willingly confesse is very mysterious and as Cajetan saith the distinctions used to accommodate it to our capacitie doe not quiet the understanding therefore he thought it his duty to captivate his into the obedience of faith And Alvarez in a solemne disputation proves that it is incomprehensible by the wit of man 4. His last is delivered most perplexedly I can make no sense of it as the words lie but I see his meaning He supposeth that God by our Tenet makes a man to sin willingly that he saith is worse then to constraine a man to sinne against his will Where observe how this man's spirit is intoxicated when he delivered this For first he calls that worse which is merely impossible and that by his own rules For he holds that sinne cannot be except it be voluntary speaking of sinne committed by any particular person Secondly he supposeth that by our opinion God makes a man to sinne which is most untrue For when he acknowledgeth that no sin can be committed by man without God's concourse will he say that God by his concourse helps a man to sinne He helps him to the producing of the act not to the committing of the sinne And indeed be the act never so vertuous if it proceed not out of the love and feare of God it is no better then such as the Heathens performed of which Austin hath professed that they were no better then splendida peccata glorious sins So that if God doth not give a man these graces of his holy Spirit in every act that is performed by him he shall sinne and not only in acts vitious and God is not bound to bestow these graces on any Section 9. Sinne may be considered as sinne or as a meanes of
himselfe confesseth to be the worke of God's providence in his Theses of providence and which in Scripture phrase is stiled the leading into temptation against which our Saviour taught his disciples to pray Thirdly the giving them over to the power of Satan And lastly God's generall concourse in moving all creatures to worke agreably to their natures necessary things necessarily contingent Agents contingently and free Agents freely But my answer to this I have prosecuted at large in more sheets then here are leaves in my answer to M. Hoord 3. As for want of mercy we willingly confesse according to the tenour of God's word as this Authour delivers himselfe without all respect thereunto that God shewes no mercy in hardning them For to harden in Scripture phrase is opposite to God's shewing mercy And as he is bound to none so he professeth that He will shew mercy on whom he will shew mercy and will have compassion on whom he will have compassion And this the Apostle takes hold of in prosecuting the doctrine of election and concludeth from hence in part in part from God's hardening of Pharaoh that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth by hardning meaning such an operation the consequence whereof is alwaies disobedience as appeares by the objection derived therehence in the words following Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine now he complaines only of disobedience For who hath resisted his will Manifestly implying that when God hardens man unto disobedience it is his secret will that he shall disobey Like as when God hardned Pharaoh that he should not let Israel goe It was God's secret will that he should not let Israel goe for a good while Secret I say in distinction from the will of command which is alwaies made knowne to them who are commanded But it pleased the Lord to make this will of his knowne to Moses though it was kept secret from Pharaoh yet afterwards he told Pharaoh to his face by his servant Moses saying And indeed for this cause have I appointed thee to shew my power in thee and to declare my name to all the world though Pharaoh believed it not as appeares by that which followeth yet thou exaltest thy selfe against me and lettest them not goe But this Authour together with M. Hoord goeth by other rules which his own fancy suggest's unto him he will have God's love and mercy extended to all and every one Christ's redemption to extend to all and every one the Covenant of grace to comprehend all and every one and upon these universalities he grounds his transcendent consolations whence it comes to passe that Abraham the father of the faithfull was of no more comfortable condition then the grand Signior among the Turkes And the grand Siginior had as good grounds of consolatiō as Abraham himselfe Yet this not shewing of mercy on the vessells of wrath prepared unto destruction tends to the greater demonstration of his mercy on the vessells of mercy prepared unto glory As the Apostle testifies Ro 9. 23. And let this Author tell Saint Paul if he thinks good That this is the disposition of hang-men rather then of good Princes And this is the perpetuall tenour of this Authour's discourse to conforme God's courses to the conditions of courses humane Man is bound to shew mercy on all God is not God is free to pardon whom he will man is not If we permit men to sinne in case we can hinder them we shall be guilty with them but how innumerable are the sins committed in the world which if God would hinder could never be committed As Austin discourseth lib. 5. contra Iulian Pelag cap. 4 In nothing did Nero's cruelty shew it selfe more then in prolonging the lives of men that he might torment them the more What then Shall we taxe God for crueltie in keeping mens bodies and soules alive for ever in hell fire to torment them everlastingly without end See what a doore of blasphemy is opened against the just God that will doe no iniquity by this Authour 's unshamefast discourse By this let the indifferent Reader judge of this Authour 's present performance withall take notice of that which himselfe hath dissembled all along touching his own tenet namely that of every sinfull act committed by the creature God is the efficient cause as touching the substance of the act as for the sinfulnesse thereof we hold it impossible that God can have any agency at all therein or any culpable deficiency forasmuch as he neither doth ought which he should not doe or after what manner he should not nor leaves undone ought which he should doe or after what manner he should doe all which are incident to the creature who is subject to a law but not at all to the Creatour who gives lawes to others but himselfe works according to the counsell of his own will in all things The summe is whatsoever we deliver as touching God's secret providence in evill we have expresse scripture for us nothing but pretence of carnall reason against us which when it comes to be examined is found subject to manifest contradiction both as touching their feigning things future without the decree of God And as touching their conditionall decrees and conditionall concurrences ours is not in any particular The greatest shew of contradiction on our parts is in the point of necessitie and libertie Now to cleare this as others have taken paines so have I in my Vindiciae proving divers and sundry waies that these two doe amically conspire to wit the necessitie being only upon supposition the liberty and contingency simply so called only it is not to be expected that there should be no difference between the liberty of the creatures and the liberty of God the Creator Or that the creature in her operation should be exempt from the operation of God The second cause exempt from the motion of the first whereunto this Authour addresseth not the least answer As for the difference which this Authour puts between the upper way and the lower in making God the Authour of sinne compare this with Arminius his profession Namely that the same twenty reasons which he objected against the upper way may all of them be accommodated against the lower way all of them admitting of the same distinctions which this Authour invades to cleare God from being the Authour of sinne The second inconvenience Section 1. The second inconvenienceis the overthrow of true religion and good goverment among men To this this opinion seemeth to tend for these reasons 1. Because it maketh sinne to be no sinne indeed but only in opinion We use to say necessity hath no law creatures or actions in which necessity beares sway are without saw Lyons are not forbidden to prey birds to fly fishes to swimme or any bruit creatures to doe according to their kinds because their actions are naturall and necessary they cannot upon any
at least by the power of God all of them And as there are necessary Agents working necessarily so there are free Agents working contingently and freely as Angells and men And albeit a question may be made as touching acts supernaturall whether the creature hath any free power to performe them freely such as are the acts of the three Theologicall vertues faith hope and charity and none other which yet we doe not deny but grant upon the infusion of a supernaturall principle into our soules which we count formally the life of grace the cause whereof we take to be the Spirit of God given unto us and dwelling in our hearts yet there deserves to be no question but that as touching all actions of morall vertues and of the contrary vitious actions that there is a free power in man to performe them naturally untill such time as by a vitious disposition procured by a custome in vitious courses a man is habitually inclined unto evill whereby he is made a slave to vice and thereby hath deprived himselfe of a morall liberty unto actions vertuous For like as a man holding a stone in his hand hath power to throw him or no or to throw him which way he will but as soone as he hath throwne him out of his hand it is no longer free unto him whether he will throw it or no. In like manner before a vitious habit contracted man hath freedome morall unto actions vertuous but not after This is the doctrine of Aristotle and thus he illustrates it For certainely the habit of vertue is not an indifferent power to doe an act vertuous or vitious but it is a morall propension and inclination only to acts vertuous So is the habit of justice a morall propension and inclination to performe only that which is just The like may be said of every morall vertue in speciall How much more doth supernaturall grace consist not in a power to believe if a man will to love God if he will to hope and waite for the joyes of heaven if he will and if he will to refuse to performe any of these acts but rather an holy and heavenly habit or weight wrought in the soule of man moving and swaying it only to gracious acts pleasing acceptable in the sight of God which indeed constitutes a spirituall liberty from sinne and makes a man become the holy servant of God willing to receive direction from him and delighting to be ordered by him in all our waies On the other side with out grace a man is left in that naturall corruption wherein he was conceived borne which makes him a slave to sinne and a vassall to Satan led captive by him to doe his will Yet not withstanding there remaines in every one his naturall liberty still which consists only in the choice of meanes conducing to man's end whereas morall vertue and grace doe order the will a right towards aright end morall vertues according to the knowledge naturall which he hath of his right end naturall grace according to the knowledg supernaturall which a man hath of his right end supernaturall which is to be rightly disposed and ordered towards God his maker So that this naturall liberty still continueth the same As for example he that it vertuous so farre forth as he is vertuous continueth still free not as freedome signifies an indifferency to performe an act vertuous vitious but being thereby disposed only to vertuous actions he is free whether to exercise this or that vertuous act according to occasiōs offered or in the same kind of a vertuous disposition whether he will doe this or that in particular as to give in such a proportion or in such a season or to such or such persons in all which being of a vertuous disposition he is ready to receive directions from the dictates of recta ratio right reason otherwise called wisedome In like manner a vitious person still keeps his naturall liberty though he hath lost his morall and is become Servus tot dominorum quot vitiorum a slave to so many Lords as there are vices in him as Austin somewhere speaketh I say he keeps still his naturall liberty For let him be a Robber he still continueth free to make choice of his complices of places wherein to lye in waite for his prey of weapons and the like Let him be an impure person still he continueth free to choose whom he will corrupt to contrive what course he thinks best for the satisfaction of his lusts Let him be covetuous or ambitious still he contintinueh free to make choice of the meanes conducing to the end obtained by him In like sort let him be regenerate a child of God by this spirit of regeneration he is moved only to doe those things which are pleasing to his heavenly father but still his naturall liberty continueth the same as whether to exercise the grace which God hath given him in one kind or in another or in the same kind in what particular he thinks good If he thinks good to pray it is free to him to fall upon the confession of his sins or upon thanksgiving or upon supplication that either for blessings temporall and the releife of his naturall necessities or for grace and the reliefe of necessities spirituall or to exercise himselfe in every kind of these and that in what order he thinks good So likewise if he give himselfe to meditation and make choice of what matter he thinks good as also of time and place in all this he is free None of all these distinctions doth this Authour take notice of but hand over head talks of freedome to performe either acts vicious or vertuous whereas the vertuous man's will as he is vertuous is inclined to vertuous courses alone and the vitious man as he is vitious is inclined to vitious courses alone and not to vertuous And it was wont to be said that Habitus agunt ad modum naturae habit 's whether vertuous or vitious they worke after the manner of nature that is naturally and necessary as before I have declared of a morall necessity which still consists with a naturall liberty either in vertuous or vitious exercises to make choice of particulars in respect of all variety of circūstances according as their reason suggests unto them in the use of means conducent to the end intended whether that end be good or bad No dominion of absolute necessity in all this Much lesse is any man good by absolute necessity but by freedome of will accustoming himselfe unto good actions according to the dictates of reason But a man that is dead in sinne hath no power to regenerate himselfe this worke of regeneration is wrought merely by the power of God Like as the raising of a man from death to life whereunto it is often compared in holy Scripture as also to creation And by regeneration we are said to be made new creatures now as God workes this in
secundum quam dicimus necesse esse ut aliquid ita sit vel ita fiat nescio cur eam timeamus ne nobis liv◠〈◊〉 voluntatis auferat If that is to be accounted our necessity which is net in our power but whether we will or no worketh as it can such as is the necessity of death It is apparent that our wills whereby we live well or ill are not under the the necessity of fate For we doe many things which if we would not we should not doe them But if necessity be defined to be such a thing as when we say it must needs be that a thing be thus or thus come to passe I know not why we should feare least such a necessity should bereave us of free will And this Austin delivers to meet with the vaine feares of those who placed our wills among'st those things which are not subject to necessity least so they should loose their liberty Observe this well and compare it with the present discourse of this positive Theologue who thinks to outface Austin with the authority of his bare word In the words following he manifests that he speakes all this while of necessity in respect of God's decree not simply but considered as irresistable by the way making no bones of avouching some decrees of God to be resistable notwithstanding the Psalmist's protestation Whatsoever the Lord willeth that hath he done both in heaven and earth And St. Paul's emphaticall expression of the same truth saying Who hath repsted his will But this Divine is a brave fellow and thinks to carry all with his breath For where hath he given us any reason to prove that any decrees of God are of any resistable condition But let his decrees be never so irresistable and let that be true which Austin saith that Non aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit Not any thing comes to passe unlesse God will have it come to passe And after Austin the Church of Ireland in their Articles of religion Yet if God will have every thing come to passe agreeably to the nature condition thereof thus necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently as Aquinas hath not only said but proved hereby is no impeachment to the liberty of the creature but an establishment thereof rather as the Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy of Ireland have professed in the foresaid Article that I may shew some authority for my sayings as this Authour represents none for his but carrieth himselfe like a Master of Sentences as if he were in his own sufficiency of more authority and credit to be believed then the Pope in a generall Councell And albeit my selfe after many others and some formerly mentioned have shewed in a large digression to this purpose that necessity upon supposition may well stand with contingency and liberty simply so called And in the first place have instanced in necessity of infallibility consequent to God's prescience which though Cicero thought could not consist with man's liberty yet Christians have alwaies been of a contrary opinion untill the Sect of the Socinians arose and Arminians are very apt to shew them so much courtesy as to beare their bookes after them Secondly I have proved a necessity upon supposition of God's decree to permit sinne For the Lord takes upon him to be the keeper of us from sinne as Gen 20. 6. He professeth as much to Abimilech that he kept him from sinning against God In case God will not keep a man from sinne what can be expected but that he will undoubtedly sinne without any prejudice to the liberty of his will considering that of Austin Libertas sine gratia non est libertas sed contumacia Liberty without grace is not liberty but wilfulnesse Thirdly and lastly upon supposition of God's will And this I prove evidently to passe on every thing which God foreseeth as future considering that contingent things are merely possible in their own nature and cannot passe out of the condition of things merely possible into the condition of things future without a cause And no other cause of this transmigration can be devised with any colour of reason or probability save only the will of God Neither doe I find that digression of mine in any the least part weakened or so much as assailed by ought that this Authour hath delivered Who sheweth himselfe upon the stage rather to brave his opposites with the bare authority of his words then with sound argument to dispute ought Sect 2. Because it taketh away the desert and guilt of sin Offences if fatall cannot be justly punished 2. The reason is because those deed for which men are punished or rewarded must be their own under their own power and and soveraignty but such are no fatall acts or events Neither temporally nor eternally can sin be-punished if it be absolutely necessary Not temporally as God himselfe hath given us to understand by that law which he prescribed the Jewes Deut 22. 25. Which was that it a Maid commit uncleanesse by constraint she should not be punished His reason was because there was no cause of death in her what she yeilded to was through compulsion being overborne by power As a man that is wounded to death by his neighbour so was a Virgin in that case a sufferer rather then a doer This particular law is of universall right No just punishment can be inslicted for sinne where there is no power in the party to avoid it The speech of Lipsius is but a mere crorchet contrary to reason Fatali culpae fatalis poena fatall faults must have fatall punishments Did magistrates thinke mens offences unavoidable they would thinke it bootlesse and unreasonable to punish them Nay not only so but we see by dayly experience that Judges following the direction of reason have very remissely punished such faults as have been committed through the power of the head strong exorbitant passions Yea we may read of some who have not thought it fit to punish such faults at all Valcrius Maximus telleth that Popilius a Roman Praetor sitting in judgment on a woman who had in a bitter passion slaine her mother because she had murthered her children neque damnavit neque absolvit neither cleared her nor condemned her And Aulus Gellius reporteth of Dolabella the Proconsul of Asia that when a woman of Smyrna was brought before him who had poysoned her husband and son for murthering a son of hers which she had by a former husband he turned her over to the Arcopagus which was the gravest and most renowned judgment seat in the world The Judges there not daring to acquit her being stained with a double slaughter nor yet to punish her being provokt with just greife commanded the accuser offender to come before them an hundred yeares after And so neither was the womans fact justified the lawes not allowing of it Nor yet the woman punished because she was worthy to be pardoned If wise
impose or can impose any such necessity on things neither are creatures capable of such necessity But if we speake of such necessity as creatures are capable of under the divine liberty by causes intermediate it is to be said that all things doe not come to passe of necessity but some doe and some doe not God will have some things come to passe by the mediation of causes necessary those come to passe necessarily Others come to passe by the mediation of causes contingent and those come to passe contingently Whereby saith he 't is manifest that they say not well who say that all things come to passe of necessity in reference to the Divine will because as hath been shewed in respect of the Divine will all things come to passe freely and therefore speaking absolutely they may not come to passe although upon supposition that they are willed they cannot but come to passe but this is only necessity upon supposition 1. Indeed if men did sinne against their wills and virgins sometimes are ravished men are slaine by force full sore against their wills they deserved no punishment But is it possible that a man can will that which is evill against his will Every ordinary Scholar in the University knowes that axiome Voluntas non potest cogi the will cannot be forced Lipsius his speech fatali culpae fatalis poena fatall faults have fatall punishments this Authour saith is but a mere crotchet contrary to reason As if he would teach the very maintainers of fate yea the very first to understand themselves For fate wherewith our doctrine is charged by our opposites is commonly called Fate Stoicall Now Zeno was the father of the Stoicks yet when his servant was taken playing the theife pleaded for himselfe saying it was my destiny to steale Zeno answeared him in his own language that it was his destiny to smart for it too right in this same sense that Lipsius spake Yet Zeno knew full well that he punished his servant freely And Zeno is well knowne to have been a great Master of morality for all this which could not consist with denying the liberty of man's will as this Authour well knowes And Austin censureth those who feared to subject the will to all manner of necessity as men transported with vaine and causelesse feares manifesting thereby that some necessity may very well consist with a man's liberty Magistrates though they believe with Austin that Not any thing comes to passe unlesse Allmighty God will have it come to passe And with the Church of Ireland that God from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever should in time come to passe And with Aquinas that the roote of contingency is the effectuall will of God yet may they well thinke it reasonable enough to punish offences seing that God decrees that some things even all the actions of men shall come to passe contingently as well as other things shall come to passe necessarily For to come to passe contingently is to come to passe avoidably and if they be the actions of men freely also It is incredible that any sober man should remissely punish faults for the exorbitancy strength sake of the passions whereby they were committed but rather in consideration of the potent causes which raised such passions in them under a colour of justice And we commonly say the greater the temptation is the lesse is the sin So Peter surprised suddainly with feare denied his Master Yet what saith Aristotle In some things no force is suffecient for excuse but a man ought to dy rather any manner of death then commit them For those things in Euripedes are rediculous which moved Alcmaeon to kill his mother Indeed Plato maintained that things done through passion were not voluntary But Aristotle a better Master then he disproves it and by excellent reasons confirmes the contrary And whatsoever Popilius the Roman Pretor judged of her who slew her mother provoked by her Mothers fact in murthering her children yet let our lawes be consulted and the opinion of our Judges in such a case and whether such a one were not to be condemned and whether Popilius his judgment deserves to be admitted for the correction of the lawes of our land and working a reformation in this particular We should soone have a wild world if every one being provoked by the insolencies of others should thrust themselves into the throne of God for the execution of vengeance Yet none more unfit for this then the daughter to execute God's vengeance upon the mother that bare her Yet it was wont to be held If I forget not that potestas patria originally was power of life and death But all is fish that comes to this Authour's net like as her fact who poisoned her husband and son for killing a son of hers destroying two for one without all authority most unnaturally and that not hastily but in a deliberate way by poisoning And doth it become Christians to admire such heathenish courses of men nothing acquainted with the divine providence And was this so doubtfull a case whether so wicked a wretch avenging her selfe by poison secretly given upon her husband and son for the death of another son of hers that the sentencing thereof should be put over untill an 100 yeares after But what of all this These willfully affect revenge the execution whereof belongs not to them but it is just with God to punish sinne with sinne one man's sinne by another As of Senacherib the Lord professeth that he would cause him to fall by the sword in his own land this was brought to passe by his own children falling upon him furiously and as unnaturally as the actions of any of these How was innocent Naboth used and by publique sentence condemned to be stoned to death and accordingly executed by the practise of wicked Iezabel Yet Solomon spareth not to professe that every man's judgment commeth of the Lord. Never were more abominable courses executed upon any then upon the holy son of God Yet these were all foredetermined by the hand of God and the counsell of God as the Apostles with one voice acknowledge By the same providence was Ioseph sold into Egypt God working thereby the preservation of them that sold him Thus Sihon was hardened and the Canaanites and the Egyptians with Pharaoh their King to their own destruction Thus the Lord punished David's foule sinne by the murther of Amnon contrived by his own brother and by the sword of Absolon rising up against his own father and by the sword of Shimei's tongue cursing David wherein David acknowledged the hand of God Thus he punished the Idolatry of the Gentiles by giving them over to vile affections and so prostituting them to abominable courses What outrages were committed by Senacherib that proud and blasphemous wretch upon the people of God yet is he called the rod of God's wrath and the staffe in his hand is
said to be God's indignation And if God leaves any man to his corruption and offers occasions and temptations from without which are naturally apt to actuate such corruptions and withall gives them over to the power of Satan what is to be expected but that they will breake forth into murther as in Senacherib's sons and the Jewes crucifying the Son of God into stealth sacrilegious as in Achan into adultery and that in an incestuous manner as we see in Absalom into insurrections an example whereof we have in the ten Tribes revolting from Rehoboam into treasons as Iudas betraying his own Master and into all manner of outragious villanies whereof the Scripture makes plentifull mention and of the providence of God therein As for God's determining to the act that is nothing at all materiall to the point in hand though this Authour in his crude conceits is much intoxicated therewith For as much as whether the wicked are exercised in actions good for the substance of them or in abstaining from that which is evill they never a whit the more either performe the one or abstaine from the other in a gracious manner and all for want of grace supernaturall which God is not bound to bestow on any All sides confesse that Divine concourse is necessary to every act as without which the creature cannot move For in God we move as well as in him we live and in him we have our being And about this concourse a question is made to wit Whether God's influence be only into the act and that upon condition modo nos velimus provided that we will is as absurd and contradictious a conceit as can be devised seing the greatest question is concerning the act of willing And is it possible that God shall worke this act upon condition that it be wrought by us why if it be wrought by us what need is there of God's working it Can the same act be the condition of it selfe and so both before and after it selfe To avoid this precipice others fly to God's prescience that at such an instant man will produce such an act of will provided that God will produce it which is worse then the former For hereby each Agent 's operation is made the condition of the other whence no operation at all can proceed Then againe a thing is fained to be foreseen by God as future which hath no cause of the futurition thereof being in it's own nature merely possible that is no more future indeed then not future And nothing but the will and decree of God can make it passe out of the condition of a thing merely possible into the condition of a thing future as is made manifest by invincible reason Therefore we say the influence of God necessarily required to every action is made into the will it selfe moving it agreably to the nature thereof to doe whatsoever it doth not voluntarily only but freely also taking liberty aright and as it ought to be taken that is in the choice of meanes tending to an end whether that end be a man's right end or no. For it is confessed by Moralists that the motion of the will towards it's congruous end is naturall and necessary not free But this brave Gentleman carrieth himselfe aloft and superciliously despising to enter into any of these lists of argumentation and as if the matter were conclusum contra Manichaeos confidently supposeth without all proofe that we maintaine that all humane actions come to passe by absolute necessity Whereas to the contrary 't is evident that nothing in the world hath it's existence by absolute necessity saving God alone 'T is true God's decree is unalterable and whatsoever comes to passe comes to passe by his will saith Austin and the Church of Ireland By the effectuall will of God saith Aquinas as which he makes the roote of all contingency And therefore as necessary causes worke necessarily by the will of God so by the same will of God doe contingent Agents worke contingently and free Agents worke voluntarily and freely And observe the immodesty of this Authour he tells us what Zeno's servant pleaded for himselfe with his Master but he doth not tell what Zeno answered him that he conceales it is enough for him to gull and cheate poore ignorants The Adrumetine Monks he saith were misled by Austin a vile imputation cast upon that man whose memory hath been alwaies honourable in the Church of God and the memoriall of his opposites rots Did Austin misleade them did he draw them into errour If they did mistake Austin shall it be true therefore to say they were misled by him How many mistake and misunderstand God's word what then shall we be so audacious and blasphemous as to say they are misled by the word of God Why may not such impudent persons proceed and say they are misled by the holy Ghost Then that which he saith of these Monks as misled by Austin it is a notorious untruth Cresconius and Felix that came over to Austin of their own heads to complaine of some in their Monastry laid to their charge indeed that they so taught grace that they denied freewill that this they pretended to have learned out of Austin's booke written to Sixtus the Presbyter But Austin was not hasty to believe this crimination And therefore he saith disjunctively of that Monke of whom they complained Aut librum meum non intelligit aut ipse non intelligitur either he understands not my booke or himselfe is not well understood by his brethren If the information were true then that Brother of whom they complained mistooke Austin For Austin doth not any where so maintaine grace as to deny free-will But if that Brother understood Austin aright in that foresaid booke of his then he maintained no such opinion as Cresconius and Felix laid to his charge but they rather misunderstood him And this appeared to be most true afterwards For Florus was the man whom Cresconius and Felix accused and whom Austin desired of Valentinus the father of them that he would send over unto him as Coccius acknowledgeth accordingly he was sent over to Austin as appeares in Austin's booke De corrept gratiâ cap. 1. With whom when Austin had conferred he found him most orthodoxe as himselfe professeth in the chapter mentioned and therein much rejoyced and withall signifieth to Valentinus that they deserved rather to be checked who misunderstood Florus And therefore when Austin in his Retractations comes to take notice of his booke De gratiâ libero arbitrio and the occasion of writing thereof he sets it downe not absolutely because of those who so doe maintaine grace as withall they deny free-will but with a disjunctive addition thus or because of those who thinke when grace is maintained therewithall that free-will is denied The first was delivered in reference to the crimination made before him by Cresconius and Felix against Florus but the latter was according to Austin's suspicion
sense to that of the Authour 's therefore other School-Divines and generally our Divines use it not And how immodest a course is this to thinke to choake us with other mens phrases and that in a quite contrary sense to that wherein the Authour 's take it And as if he had very substantially concluded the point that lawes doe nothing rules of religion and mens endeavours do nothing whereas he hath performed no part either of a Philosopher or of a Divine in all this but of a mere trifler he proceeds to demand why the one are made the other prescribed why men are encouraged to some things and scared from the other He might as well aske what meant King Hezechiah to have any care either of his foode or of taking Physicke for those 15 yeares which God told him he had added unto his life What meant Paul to tell the Master of the ship that unlesse the Mariners were detained in the ship they could not be saved what meant some to trust to their swimming others to boards brokempeeces of the ship to get to land when the Lord by his Angell had told him that he had given him the lives of all that sailed with him In the very daies of Cicero the Stoicks were acquainted with such like arguments made against their destiny and knew how readily to answer them by distinguishing between Fatalia and Confatalia as appeares in Cicero's book de Fato and Turnebus his answer to Ramus thereupon more at large Therefore this Authour disputes not logically if he did the vilenesse of his argumentation would soone appeare according to it's proper colours but carrieth the matter all along in Rhetoricall flourishes as if his wit served him for that best whereat I wonder not a little that he should forsake that wherein his facultie lieth most according to the reputation that goes of him trust to that wherein his best dexterity hath been accounted but inficete If our doctrine tends to the subversion of policy religion and lawes society goverment In the next place we expect when he will turne starke Atheist and professe as much of the word of God seing it is manifest our doctrine cheifly is founded upon the word of God even in that which sounds most harsh unto carnall judgment namely as touching God's secret providence in evill this Authour not accomodating any answer to any one of those places whereupon our doctrine is grounded And as for God's providence in working us unto holinesse his contrary doctrine cannot stand without maintaining that Grace is given according unto mens works which is expresly contradictory to the word of God 2 Tim 1. 9. Tit 3. 5 and opposed by the church of God as the sowre leaven of Pelagianisme from the Synod of Palestine all along For aske this Authour wherefore God bestowes faith upon one not upon another he hath nothing to answer but either by denying plainly that faith is the gift of God which hitherto they are not growne so impudent as to deny expresly though the Remonstrants in their Censura censurae come so farre as to deny that Christ merited faith and regeneration for any man Or they must answer that the reason hereof is because the one by some act of his or other hath prepared himselfe for the reception of divine influences the other hath not Or in plaine termes as one hath expressed it that God doth worke in us Credere to believe modo velimus provided that we will believe But doth he not worke also the very act of willing Saint Paul saith he doth yea every thing that is pleasing in his sight And how doth he worke in us this will Is it upon condition that we will This is the absurdity whereunto they are driven still fetching in a priority of mans act to the divine influence working us to that which is good yet most preposterously For what need is there of influence divine to make us to will if of our selves we will already And this also utterly overthrowes God's prescience of things future which can have no true foundation besides the divine decree As for Mathematici which were banished out of Rome were those Divines or Astrologers rather If they subjected the event of all things to the influence of the stars shall Austin be blamed or the Church of Ireland for subjecting all things to the councell of God's will and that according to the expresse testimony of holy Scripture both as touching good and evill only with this difference good things to his will of working them evill things to his will of permitting them As for Prosper's saying in the last place we make no contingent things throughout the world much lesse the actions of men to come to passe unavoidably no not upon supposition of God's decree but by vertue of his decree both contingent things come to passe contingently that is with a possibility of not comming to passe free things freely that is joyned with an active power in the Agent either to suspend his action or to doe otherwise as well as necessary things come to passe necessarily This I say we avouch with Aquinas and accordingly with him maintaine the root of contingency to be the effectuall will of God Againe I have often shewed that Predestination in the phrase of the Antients is only of such things as God decreed to bring to passe by his effection notwithstanding this Austin was bold to professe that not any thing came to passe unlesse God would have it come to passe but evill things only by suffering them good things by working them As for compulsion which is Prosper's phrase and which this Authour corrupts rendring iâ— by the urging which is ambiguous We deny that man is compelled to acts supernaturall much lesse doe we grant compulsion to acts naturall such as are all sinfull acts yea too connaturall unto him compared in Scripture to sweet morsells which they roule under their tongue as the booke of Iob resembles it By all which we may judge indifferently both of this Authour's sufficiencie and modesty Austin never said that God predestinated any man to sinne For predestination with them as hath been said was only of such things as God determined to worke Yet the same Austin confidently professeth of those things which come to passe by God's sufferance and these we all know to be evill things that they come not to passe unlesse Almighty God will have them come to passe Thus farre in answer to this Authour's additions to M. Hoord's discourse and concerning the upper and more harsh and rigorous way which M. Hoord left unprosecuted pag. 49 there is a passage added a citation out of Peter but it is of the same nature with the rest add's no strength to the argument and my answer satisfies it as well as the rest P. 52. c. Is inserted a representation how the doctrine of our Divines fighteth with God's holinesse Sect. 1. It fighteth with God's
among heathen men I come to his second position which he casts upon us as dissenting therein from himselfe and it is this That God leaves the Reprobates irrecoverably in it Now on this point I would gladly know his contrary Tenet in what sense it proceeds namely That Reprobates are not left irrecoverably in originall sinne or in such state wherein they cannot avoid sinne For I cannot comprehend his meaning herein But it was wont to be said of Africa that semper aliquid apportat novi alwaies it brings forth some new monster in course of nature So men of this Authour's spirit are alwaies bringing forth some new monster in Divinity For what thinks he was ever any Reprobate recovered out of originall sin Nay was ever any child of God recovered out of it while he lived upon the face of the earth Or doth he thinke himselfe recovered out of it or is it in his power to avoid it Perhaps he will say though he cannot avoid sin originall yet he can avoid sin actuall and so not only the children of God may if they will but even Reprobates also But what may they avoid all sinne or some only What one of our Divines denies that a Reprobate hath power to avoid fornication We see heathens doe avoid it Or stealth For heathens doe so Or murther Even heathens have been found very morall and that generally But this we say All men in the state of nature whether they doe good as touching the substance of the act yet they doe it not in a gracious manner Or whether they abstaine from that which is evill they doe not abstaine from it in a gracious manner nor can doe Nay since the fall of Adam who ever lived free from sinne the Son of God only excepted Doth notholy Paul professe of himselfe saying I doe not the good that I would but the evill that I would not that doe I. To will is present with me but I find not to performe hat which is good And if God may justly damne all for sinne originall as Mr. Hoord affirmes why may not God leave all irrecoverably in it and that justly So that herein I find my selfe in a brake not can devise with my selfe in what tollerable or colourable sense he can affirme that Reprobates are not left irrecoverably in the state of originall sinne or in such a state in which they cannot avoid sinne I say in what sense he can deliver this different from us I cannot devise For we willingly grant that there is no particular actuall sinne from which a Reprobate hath not power to abstaine though he cannot abstaine from it in a gracious manner without grace and that grace we account the grace of regeneration which is a supernaturall principle of gracious actions both as touching faith in God and the love of God to the contempt of our selves Now I guesse his meaning is that no Reprobate is so left and abandoned in originall sinne but that God gives him grace to believe if he will to repent if he will to love God if he will that above all things I guesse I say that this is his meaning but I would have him expresse it that I might see it under his hand For till then I find noe apparent difference between him us as touching these two principles from whence he deduceth that God is thereby made The principall cause of sin in the greatest number of men And if once he deliver himselfe fairely and comes to this the issue of the question to be debated between us will be faire and cleare namely about this their universall grace whether all men elect and Reprobate by vertue of supernaturall grace given unto them have power to beleive if they will repent if they will And against this I will dispute after this manner First in all this there is no difference between us excepting that this power is said to be wrought in man by supernaturall grace For we say with Austin Deo credere ab amore temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere omnes possunt si velint All men can believe God if they will and from the love of temporall things convert themselves to the keeping of God's commandements if they will For all the moment of inclining a man to workes of morallity lyeth in the will of man And therefore marke what followes in Austin Sed praeparatur voluntas à Domino supple ut velit tantumque augetur munere charitatis ut possit But the will is prepard by the Lord to wit to make it willing and so much augmented by the gift of charity as to make it able And I prove that looke what I supply is according unto Austin interpreting that of the Apostle neque volentis neque currentis sed miserentis Dei it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy For he shewes that the whole both to will and run is to be ascribed unto God qui hominis voluntatem bonam praeparat adjuvandam adjuvat praeparatam who both prepares the good will of man that after he may helpe it and helpes it being once prepared where plainly man swilling that which is good is made the fruit of God's preparing it but because there is in man a will of the flesh resisting this will of the spirit therefore there is need not of grace preparing only but of grace adjuvant and helping also to enable it to doe what it hath a will unto whence immediatly followeth running as well as willing And these two graces praeparant and adjuvant are afterward called by the names of grace prevenient and subsequent thus Nolentem praevenit ut velit volentem subsequitur ne frustra velit Him that is unwilling the Lord preventeth to make him willing and willing he followeth him that he may not will in vaine And that this double grace is required by reason of the reluctancy between the flesh and the Spirit I prove out of the same Austin writing thus Prima gratiâ est quâ fit ut habeat homo justitiam si velit secunda ergo plus potest quâ etiam fit ut velit tantum velit tantoque ardore diligat ut carnis voluntatem contraria concupiscentem voluntate spiritus vincat The first grace is that whereby it comes to passe that a man is righteous if he will The second grace therefore is of more power whereby it comes to passe also that a man doth will and that so resolutely and with such fervency loveth compare this with that of Austin de Gen contrae Manich lib. 1. cap 3. that by the will of the Spirit he overcommeth the will of the flesh fighting against it So that a power to doe good if a man will is one thing to will that which is good is another thing and lastly to be able to doe that which it wills is a third thing yet both these two last are
but that to him sinne is to be imputed when it is done by Tertullians rule approved by this Authour quite contrary to the judgment and doctrine of Austin putting this difference betweene man and God the creature and the Creator that if we suffer others to sinne when we can hinder them rei cum ipsis erimus but how many sinnes sayth he do we see committed in the world which could never come to passe if God would hinder them Shewing how our doctrine opposeth Gods mercy according to his conceit and coming to deliver things more closely as he sayth and comprehending that which he hath to say under 4. particulars The 2. whereof this That it was the sinne of our nature not by generation as I have shewed but by Gods owne voluntary imputation The proofe whereof and the confirmation of it out of M. Calvin being set downe at large in some 13. lines or more in M. Hords discourse is here utterly left out which will be the more remarkable by comparing it with what he delivers concerning another attribute of God here inserted and which he pretends also to be impugned by our doctrine p. 54. where he seemes to sup up that which here he delivered Num. 3. These words are inserted I thinke I may conclude with the words of Prosper He which sayth that God would not have all men to be saved but a certaine set number of predestinate persons only he speaketh more harshly then he should of the height of Gods unsearchable grace Nay he speakes that which cannot stand with his infinite grace and mercy especially to the sonnes of men The 8. objection of the Galles was this That God will not have all men to be saved but a certaine number of persons predestinate Now Prospers answer hereunto is very large and it begines thus If about the salvation of all mankind and calling them unto the knowledge of his truth the will of God is maintained to be so indifferent throughout all ages that God may be shewed to have neglected no man altogether the unsearchable depth of Gods judgement is hereby assaulted For why did God suffer all nations in ages past to walke in their owne wayes when the Lord chose Iacob to himselfe and dealt not so with every nation And why are they now become Gods people which before were no people of God c All this makes nothing for this Authour The next is directly against him not only at large but in this very particular wherein he alleadeth Prosper not in his answer to this 8. objection but in his sentence proposed afterwards upon it For what is this Authours meaning in citeing him to affirme that God not only willeth their salvation whom he hath predestinated but all men also or at least that such as say the contrary do speake more harshly then we ought to speaks of the depth of Gods inscrutable grace but to cast a colour that Prosper concurres with him and judgeth that God is indifferunt to save all But the reason why he only saves some and not others is because some prepare themselves for grace and accordingly he bestowes it upon them Others do not prepare themselves and accordingly God doth not bestow it upon them Now prosper directly contests against all such as maintaine this opinion and that in two particulars 1. In taking upon them to give the reason of Gods judgements and that drawen from the wills and actions of men and which is no lesse impiety in thinking that grace is bestowed by way of reward for good workes Or restrayned from men by reason of their evill workes His words translated run thus But whosoever referreth the causes of Gods workes and judgements throughout to the wills and actions of men and will have Gods dispensations varied according to the changeable condition of mans free will such a one professeth the judgements of God to be scrutable and his wayes such as may be found out And that which Paul the Doctor of the Gentiles durst not touch this man thinkes he can unlock and make known And that which is a fruit of no lesse impiety the very grace of God whereby we are saved is given by the way of reward for good workes and denyed or restrained for evill workes So that in each particular Prosper is directly contrary this Authours tenet Now seeing the most part of men have not the grace of salvation that is such a grace as is of saving nature And the reason by God doth not give it them is not in consideration of their evill workes let any other sober and judicious Aminian be judge whether God can be sayd to will their salvation in such a sense as we speake of it when he denyeth them the grace of salvation and that not for their evill workes sake but which necessarily followeth hereupon meerely according to the good pleasure of his will And indeed in Prospers large answer to this eighth objectionto the Galles which taketh up almost a whole columne in Austin this Authour finds nothing at all to fasten upon for his advantage But yet you will say in his eighth sentence which he proposeth it is as this authour alleadgeth I grant it but observe his censure well The inscrutable depth of Gods grace may suffice to keep us from speaking so rashly as to say that God wills not all to be saved but only a certaine number of persons predestinate Where observe first he counts it an harsh speech to say that God willeth not that all men shall be saved the reason whereof undoutedly is this because it is expresly contradictory to a text in Scripture But then if we object how can God be sayd to will their salvation whom he hath not predestinated to whom he will not give the grace of salvation that not for their evill workes sake but according to the meere pleasure of his will Now Prospers answer in my judgement is this The depth of Gods inscrutable grace will beare us out in it so that we need not cast our selves upon so harsh an expression as to deny that God will have all men to be saved which is contradictious to the letter of Gods word In effect it is as if he should say It is a secret This I take to be Prospers meaning and herein I remit my selfe to the judicious But sure I am that Prosper is directly contrary to that opinion whereunto this Authour by vertue of this sentence of his desires to draw him In like manner the Authour of the booke De vocatione Gentium which is commonly thought to be Prospers though Vossius affects to entitle it unto another upon no other ground but because he conceits that Authour not to be so rigorous in the doctrine of predestination as Prosper But let the judicious compare Prospers cariage in this particular with that Authours and observe whether they do not exactly agree For that Authour holds up that text of Paul God will have all to be
saved as Prosper doth without assaying to cleare it by interpretation as Austin doth and will have it goe for a secret and withall he expresly concurres with Prosper in expressing first that God doth not give grace for mens good workes sake nor denyes it for their evill workes For the ages wherein God so plentifully communicated his grace were no better then the former Observe farther that Austin himselfe in his Enchiridion treating of this place of Paul God will have all to be saved after he hath given two interpretations thereof the last whereof interpreting it of genera singulorum not singula generum is most generally received as most congruous both to Scripture phrase in generall and in speciall unto this very text of Paul as Piscator observes and Vossius against himselfe improvidently confesseth Yet see the ingenuity of this great light in Gods Church If any man can give any other convenient interpretation let him provided we be not driven to deny the first article of Creed whereby we confesse that God is omnipotent And this I conceive proceeded out of a desire to hold up the meaning of that text to the uttermost that the very letter of it may be applyed so we might not be driwen to so foule an inconvenience as to say that God willeth that mans salvation which is never saved which is as much as to say that such a one therefore is not saved because God cannot save him Observe farther in the dayes of Hincmarus and Remigius these controversies being revived in the cause of Goteschalk the church of Lyons writes a booke wherein it treats of the meaning of this place of Paul whereof he gives fower expositions according to the antient fathers First That it is to be understood of genera singulorum not singula generum of all sorts of men not of all men of all sorts Secondly That none is saved but by the will of God Thirdly That God workes in us a will or a desire that all may be saved Fourthly That God will have all men to be saved if they will Then they propose their judgement concerning these fower expositions distinguishing betweene the three first and the last thus In the three first expositions of these words wherein it is sayd that God willeth all men to be saved no absurdity is to be found no repugnancy unto faith But as touching the fourth and the last here we are to take heed for it gives occasion to the Pelegian pravity in as much as it affirmes that God that he may save men doth exspect the wills of men Now this Pelagian pravity is the very substance of our Authours orthodoxy whom I deale with Against this errour sayth the Church of Lyons we read Definitions have beene made in the antient counsels of the fathers This I take out of the extracts which Vossius hath made out of that booke which goes under the name of the Church of Lyons in his Pelagian history l. 7. c. 4. p. 755 756. there is an addition of some few lines in the third Sect concerning Gods justice but they adde noe moment at all to the rest and therefore the answer made in that third Sect to M. Hord may suffice And in the same sect and subsection subordinate to the second assertion which he obtrudes upon the maintainers of the lower way which was this God hath determined for the sinne of Adam to cast away the greatest part of mankind for ever this Interpolation is inserted This is so cleare a case that Calvin with some others have not stickt to say that God may with as much justice determine men to hell the first way as the latter See Instit l. 3. cap. 23. s 7. Where against those who deny that Adam fell by Gods decree he reasoneth thus All men are made guilty of Adams sinne by Gods absolute decree alone Adam therefore sinned by this only decree What lets them it grāt that of one man which they must grant of all men And a little after he saith It is too absurd that these kind patrons of Gods justice should thus stumble at a straw and leap over a blocke God may with as much justice decree Adams sinne and mens damnation out of his only will and pleasure as out of that will and pleasure the involving of men in the guilt of the first sinne at and their damnation for it That is the substance of his reasoning To the same purpose speaketh Maccovius Fromhence we may see sayth he what to judge of that opinion of our adversaryes viz. That God cannot justly ordaine men to destruction without he consideration of sinne Let them tell me which is greater to impute to one man the sinne of another and punish him for it with eternall death or to ordaine simply without looking at sinne to destruction Surely no man will deny the first of these to be greater But this God may do without any wrong to iustice much more therefore may he do the other As touching the assertion it selfe here charged upon our Divines namely that God hath determined for the sinne of Adame to cast away the greatest part of mankind I have thereunto answered at large in my consideration of M. Hords discourse Yet let me adde something by way of an apt accommodation of that before delivered to cleare the ambiguous phrase of this Authour as touching the phrase of casting away For it may well be doubted whether by casting away which he makes the Object of Gods determination he meanes the act of damnation or the act of denying grace If the act of damnation it is most untrue For Reprobates are not damned for originall sinne only but for all the actuall sinnes that have beene committed by them And as they are and shall be damned for them So God from everlasting decreed they should be damned for them Secondly According to my Tenet in noe moment of nature is Gods decree of damning reprobates before the prescience not of originall sinne only but also of all their actuall sinnes Indeed I do not make the prescience of sinne to go before the decree of damnation Nor do I make the decree of damnation to go before the prescience of sinne but I conceive them to be simultaneous It is true many infants we say perish in originall sinne only not living to be guilty of any actuall sinne of their persons why should this seeme strange when M. Hord himselfe professeth in his preface sect 4. That all mankind are involved in the guilt of eternall death If all are guilty of eternall death then it were just with God to inflict eternall death upon all for originall sinne How much more is it just to inflict eternall death upon some few being guilty of it Therefore observe the foxlike cariage of this Authour For this former free acknowledgement of the guilt of eternall death adherent to originall sinne in M Hords discourse is quite left out in this though there it was professed with
our answers thereunto which formerly were but two but now are inlarged with the addition of a third The first whereof is for the forme of it changed throughout The comparison of the waies of God with the mysterious attributes of God is changed not only as touching the forme but as touching the matter here is no pleading for a reasonable service of God as there was His making man's understanding purged from prejudice and false principles as it was proposed there purged from prejudices corrupt affections and customes as it is proposed to be the Tribunall according to whose judgment interpretations of Scripture concerning what is just in the courses of God must be allowed or disallowed I have sufficiently canvased there Let the Reader be pleased to turne to it and compare my answer to this Sub-section and observe how little spirit he had so much as to question against any one peece of my answer Here he addes a reason of his former uncouth paradoxe to wit that Iustice in men and God are for substance but one and the same thing though different in degree as the greater and lesser light I have sufficiently profligated this in the first Section concerning God's attributes For this very rule he premiseth in generall to the ensuing discourse of his most congruously wilde premises and grounds to wild discourses The difference he puts between the wayes of God the mysteries of godlinesse I have there also refuted shewing that albeit some wayes of God's justice are agreable to the judgment of man as these mentioned Es 5. and Ezek 18 yet all are not as there I shew at large And lastly because he likes rationall discourse so well I am contented to deale with him at his own weapon by six rationall demonstrations justifying the absolutenesse of God's decrees in answer whereunto he is content to carry himselfe very judiciously even as mute as a fish The second answer of ours which he brings in to reply upon is inserted a new that I come to consider in the next place as I find it set down pag. 10. 71. 72. It is answered that these decrees are set down in Scripture to be the will of God and therefore they must needs be just For God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse To this answer I have these things to reply 1. This rule in divinity is much abused by the maintainers of absolute reprobation and may not be admitted in their sense and meaning For God's will is not a rule of justice to himselfe as if things were therefore just because he willeth and worketh them but his justice rather is a rule of his will workes which are the expressions of his will He therefore maketh decrees and executeth them because they are agreable to that justice which dwells in the Divine nature as he maketh nothing which hath not potâ—nitam objectivam a power of being created without implying contradiction to himselfe or any thing in him So he willeth and doth nothing but that which may be willed and done salvá justitiâ— without wrong to his justice St. Hierome speaking of the Prophet Hoseas taking a wife of fornication Hos 1. 2. Saith it was done in typo typically not â—â—ally quia si siat turpissimii est because if it had been dâ—ne indeed it had been a most foule thing But thou wilt answer saith he Deo â—ubente nihil turpe est God commanding it nothing is dishonest Thus much we say saith the father that God commandeth nothing but what is honest but he doth not by commanding dishonest things make those things honest which are abominable plainly giving us to see what he thought viz that God doth not will a thing of make it good but willeth it because it is in it selfe good antecedently before the act of God's will about it And thus much doth Zanchy though a rigid maintainer of absolute reprobation not obscurely confesse in his treatise De naturá Dei where he letteth â—all such speeches as make God's justice antecedent to his will and therefore the rule of it rather then a thing regulated by it Neither can God will any thing saith he which is not just And againe The Princes pleasure hath the strength of a law is a Rule saith he among the Canonists But this is true where the King is just and a 〈◊〉 nothing but what is just In which words he plainly maketh the justice of the King amâ—â—edent to that will of his which must be a law Many more speeches he useth there to the same purpose God's will therefore is not a rule of justice to himselfe To whom then To us For by it we are first to â—quaâ—e all our thoughts words and deeds Secondly to examine them when they are spoken and done Primum in aliqâ—o 〈…〉 regula â—ostcricrum supremum inferiorum 2ly I reply that theâ—â— absolute accrces of mens inâ—vitable salvation and damnation are no parts of Gods revealed will The scriptures teache us no such matter And therefore to say that they are is but a mere begging of the question It hath alwaies been ordinary with false teachers to make Gods word a father to their false opinions that they may stand the faster and winne the greater credit The Papists ground their Transubstantiation the Lutherans their conâ—ubstantiation and obiquity upon the Scripture Hoc est corpus meuÌ„ This is my body And the defenders of absolute reprobation doe so too They make their cause to be Gods and entitle his word to it because they see it is the surest way to defend it being herein like to some contentious people who being in law and having a bad cause which they are like to loose they entitle the King to it that they may the better uphold it 3ly Absolute Reprobation can be no part of Gods revealed will The reason is because it is odious to right reason begetteth absurdities For nulla veritas parit absurda no truth begetteth absurdities Divers truths are revealed in Scripture which are above but not contrary to right reason whether they be matters of faith or life Faith and reason nature and Scripture are both Gods excellent gifts And therefore though there may be a disproportion yeâ— there can be no repugnancy between them The worship which God requireth is Cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable 〈◊〉 And the word of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milke reasonable and without guile These things therefore being laid together it will appeare to be but a mere shift and evasion when absolute reprobation is prâ—ved to be unjust and therefore unworthy of God to say Gods will is the rule of justice this is part of Gods revealed will and therefore most just whatsoever reason may cavill and say to the contrary Doth not this Authour observe the contradictious nature of this proposition Gods will is a rule of justice to himselfe For a rule of justice to any one is a rule to
his will to be regusated thereby can the will be said to be the rule of justice to the will without contradiction The rule propounded was this God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse but the other rule is the rule corrupted by this Authour when he talks of a will as a rule of justice to the will 2. But whether things are therefore just because God wills them or that therefore God willeth them because they are just undoubtedly that which here is proposed is a truth namely that whatsoever the Scripture sets downe to be the will of God that must needs be just Neither have we any need to improve it any farther then thus For it is well known that our Divines in their doctrine of predestination and reprobation doe depend on nothing so much as the evidence of God's word As this Author throughout this discourse of his depends on nothing lesse And therefore he hath cast himselfe upon a strange practice in the former passage namely to evacuate all our reasons drawn out of the word of God to confirme our doctrine pleading that the interpretations we make of Scripture are all false because the contrary doctrine which he maintaines is justified before the tribunall of humane reason purged from prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes Which is as much as to professe in plaine termes that to find out the truth concerning the decrees of predestination and reprobation we must leave the oracles of God and hearken to the oracles of reason provided that it be purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes Now I had thought that the spirit of God alone could purge us from such prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes And that this spirit of God worketh only by the word herein which is called in Scripture the sword of the spirit Yet this Author tells us not where this reason thus purged is to be found save that in generall he saith that is just or unjust which is so esteemed in the judgment both of best and worst that stand indifferent to the entertainment of any truth as is to be seen in the former reason according to M. Hord's discourse Now who these best are but the Arminians in this Authours fancy the worst but Anabaptists or heathens or both I know not Sure we are none of them in his understanding purged from false principles and prejudice from corrupt affections and customes because we doe not stand indifferent to the entertainment of his tenets which he calls Truths 3. Where can he shew that I have made use of any such principles to answer any argument of his against us I doe not find that any where he can drive me to this though this be the Apostles course as we may see Ro 9. Is there any injustice with God God forbid how doth he prove it but thus because the Scripture attributes such a course to God I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whome I will have compassion 4. But where hath he learnt to be so audacious as to say that Things are not therefore just because God wills them but that his justice is rather a rule of his will and works Before he told us that justice in man and God were of the same nature Now that justice which is the rule of our will is Justitia obligans justice binding us to doe this or that and is Gods justice obligatory likewise to bind him In making the world I doe not doubt but God did that which was just but was there any justice in God obliging him to the making of the world who seeth not what an Atheisticall conclusion followeth herehence namely that the world was from everlasting if not necessarily by necessity of nature yet necessarily by obligation of justice otherwise for an infinite space of time wherein the world was not made which must needs have been if the world were not from everlasting God had been and continued to be unjust The Schooles have taught me that there is a justice of condecency consequent to all the actions of God noe justice of obligation precedent to it And whereas St. Paul tells us that God works all things according to the counsell of his will both Alvarez and Suarez though School Divines of opposite families yet concurre in this that this Counsell is à libera voluntate acceptum accepted of Gods free will And it is observable that the Apostle calls it not the Counsell of his understanding but the counsell of his will And Vasquâ—z and Suarez both Jesuites but very opposite about the nature of justice in God yet both concurre that there is no justice in God towards his creature but upon supposition of the determination of God's will It is most true that supposing the end which God intends the wisedome of God directs in the right use of congruous meanes and no other justice then this his wisedome doth Aquinas acknowledge in the Divine nature And great is the wisedome which God manifests in the goverment of this world yet the same wisedome as great as it is doth not equall the infinite wisdome of God But of this I have disputed more at large in my Vindiciae Where this question is discussed Whether the will of God be circumscribed or regulated by justice To no parcell whereof doe I find the least savour of an answer in this Authour But let us examine how well he proves his own Tenet And that is first by the authority of Hierome in his preface to his commentaries on Hosea 2. By the authority of Zanchy whereto I answer 1. That if the interpretations of Scripture must be judged of before the Tribunall of reason purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes must not the opinions of such as Hierome and Zanchy be judged of before the same tribunall also 2ly touching Hierome himselfe 1. It is true Hierome in that preface understands that command given Hosea to be only in a Type and for the reason here mentioned but in his Commentary he interpreteth it secundum historiam litterally Neither was the Prophet as he saith to be blamed in this For he was not the worse but he made her the better Praesertim especially he was not to be blamed because he did this not luxuriously or lustfully or of his own will but in obedience to the command of God Now let the indifferent judge whether Hierome be not as much for us upon the text as for our adversary in the preface 2. Observe that Hierome is nothing for him in the preface For Hierome speakes there of God's will of command but we treate of God's will as it signifies not his command given to man but his own purpose and decree to doe this or that himselfe Judge of the extravagancy of this Author by this and whether his understanding be sufficiently purged from prejudice and false principles from
corrupt affections and customes as to make the last resolution of our faith concerning the waies of God thereunto or the understanding of such as he is whether best or worst or of both sizes upon a mere pretence of their indifferency for the entertainement of truths We willingly grant with Zanchy that God can will nothing which is not just Not that hereby we make any justice to precede the will of God but because he hath a lawfull power to doe what he will And there is a justice of condency consequent to all his actions It is otherwise I confesse with a man though the greatest of men as wise as Solomon though vessells after God's own heart as David But hence it followeth not that because in an earthly King there is a justice antecedent to his will therefore it is so in the King of heaven and earth If this Authour thinke otherwise let him know I am not yet sufficiently convicted of the purity of his understanding purged from prejudice and false principles c. as thereinto to make the last resolution of my faith Yet I confesse he carrieth himselfe magnificently as if he had attained to this purgation as when he saith That these absolute decrees of salvation and damnation are not part of God's revealed will But where hath he proved the conditionall decrees that he stands for are any part of God's revealed will Where doth he find that God decreed to bestow faith and repentance upon a man because of some good works of his or deny it to others for failing of some good worke As for salvation and damnation we plainly professe that God intended not to damne any man but for sinne nor to bestow salvation on any man of ripe yeares but by way of reward of his faith repentance obedience and good works Doth not he begge the question all along whē he carrieth his conditionall decrees in a confidentiary manner without once offering to prove thè by any one place of Scripture Here Iexpected he would not begge the question when he chargeth us to begge the question most insipidly When it is well known that our Divines are frequent in proving their doctrine out of Scripture which if it faile of sound proofe in the judgment of his understanding purged from prejudice and false principles yet with no modesty whatsoever their judgment be can he taxe them for begging the question For to begge the question is not once to offer to prove what they say which is this Authour's discourse all along But to supply the place of arguments he usually foist's in a phrase at pleasure in expressing our Tenet of God's decrees as of Decreeing immutably and unavoidably Or as here he speakes of Damnation and salvation inevitable whereas we doe not use to clogge our own expressions or our Readers apprehensions with any such bugheares We rather say that God decrees all things to come to passe that do come to passe and that agreably to their natures as necessary things necessarily and contingent things to come to passe contingently And surely for doctrines of faith I thinke every sober Christian hath cause to entitle the King to be the Authour of them this Authour doth not so much for his Nay the Scripture to him seemed so evidently to make for us which I desire every wise Reader well to observe that this drave him to such a sluttish shift as to except against our interpretations of Scripture upon noe other ground but this that the Doctrine confirmed thereby is not consonant to the understanding of men purged from prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes in the designing of what is just and what is unjust And let every indifferent man judge whether this be not a desperate course carying with it a secret acknowledgment that the Scripture indeed doth favour the way we take in the Doctrine of predestination and reprobation And indeed the ninth to the Romans Gerardus Vossius calls Gorgons head whereby we thinke so evident is the Apostles meaning on our side to turne all our opposites into stones though such vants are none of ours but himselfe it seemes had been stupified by it had he not timely taken hold of Scientia media the Jesuites invention and as vile an invention as ever reasonable men conceived 3. Lastly he tells us like a resolute Sir that absolute reprobation can be no part of God's revealed will and his reason is because it is odious to right reason He doth not shew how it is contrariant to God's word but bravely presumes that his reason is right as if he were of the number of that synedrion whose understandings are purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes and ere he is aware bewraies what he meanes by reason when he attributes hatred unto it And I verily believe his best reason is the strength of his affection By the way let the Reader observe that he is as opposite to absolute election as to absolute reprobation only he dischargeth his right reason and the spleen thereof against absolute reprobation not against absolute election We may easily guesse the true notion of his right reason in this his whole discourse savouring farre more throughout of the foxes then of the Lyons skin Now I have given him six reasons for the absolutenesse of reprobation because he appeales to reason purged from prejudice and false principles and not one of them hath he answered though they went out of my hands now full three yeares agoe I will adventure to give him some reasons for it also out of God's word For I desire to follow the crooked serpent which way soever he winds and turnes Therefore thus I dispute Predestination is absolute therefore reprobation is absolute For if reprobation be not absolute but proceeds according to mens evill works then predestination is not absolute but proceeds according to mens good works whether faith or other obedience according to that of Austin If Esau be hated for the merit of unrighteousnesse incipit Iacob justitiae merito deligi Iacob beginnes to be beloved for the merit of his righteousnesse and a little before Si enim quia praesciebat Deus futura Esaui opera mala propterea eum praedestinavit ut serviret minori propterea praedestinavit Iacob ut ei major serviret quia futura ejus bona opera praesciebat falsum est jam quod ait non ex operibus For if therefore the Lord praedestinated Esau that he should serve the younger because he foresaw his evill works For the same reason he predestinated Iacob that he should rule over the Elder because he foresaw his good works and so false is that which the Apostle saith not of works Now that predestination is absolute I prove thus It is not upon the foresight of faith much lesse of works therefore it is absolute The anteceedent I prove thus That which proceeds according to the good pleasure of the Lord's will is not
upon the foresight of faith But predestination proceeds upon the good pleasure of God's will ergo The Major proposition I prove thus This phrase according to the pleasure of God's will excludes all outward causes And no wise man will referre the cause of a man's absolution to the good pleasure of the judge when a man's innocency is the cause of it For that is the cause of a thing whereby answere is made to the question why such a thing is done And this is the perpetuall phrase of Scripture as Is it not lawfull for me to doe what I will with mine own And All these things worketh the same spirit distributing to every man severally as he will and He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth It pleased the father that in him should all fulnesse dwell It is so ô father because thy good pleasure was such It is God that worketh in you both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure The Lord loved you because he loved you Deut 7. 7. They inherited not the land by their own sword neither did their own arme save them but thy right hand and thine arme and the light of they countenance because thou diddest favour them 2. My second argument is Therefore God gives faith because he did predestinate them As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life and God added daily to the Church such as should be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeares by the equipollency of both sentences Now hence I inferre Therefore God gives not faith because he hath not ordained them to everlasting life For if the affirmation be cause of the affirmation the negation is cause of the negation And the Scripture as ordinarily subjoyneth the deniall of grace to reprobation as the granting of grace to predestination For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as perish is opposite to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as shall be saved And as the consequent of the one is said to be Faith so the consequent to the other is the deniall of the same or like grace As for example All they that are of God heare God's word so others heare them not because they are not of God as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such as shall be saved are added to God's Church so in whom is the Gospell hid only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them that perish Among whom doth Antichrist prevaile by all deceivablenesse only in them that perish Like as for the Elect on the contrary 't is not possible they should be seduced Mat 24. 24 and 2 Thes 2. 13 3. If predestination were upon the foresight of faith then it should be only upon the foresight of such a faith as perseveres to the end whence two inconveniences follow 1. That no man can be assured of his election untill his death which is quite contrary unto Scripture For Paul was assured of the election of the Thessalonians by observation of the works of their faith the labour of their love and the patience of their hope 2. In this case none can be strengthened against the power of temptation by the assurance of their election But thus we are strengthned by Chist Mat 24. 24. by St. Paul Rom 8. 29. 2 Thes 2. 13. 4. Election is absolute therefore reprobation is absolute The antecedent I prove If it be neither of faith nor of works then it is absolute but it is neither of faith nor works Not of works expresly Not of faith as appeates by the same reason whereby Paul proves it is not of works For the reason is this Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the Elder shall serve the younger Therefore election is not of works Now say I we may as well conclude therehence therefore it is not of faith forasmuch as before they were borne they were as uncapable of faith as of works The consequence I prove thus Looke by what reason St. Paul proves that the election of Iacob was not of good works because before they were borne 't was said The Elder shall serve the younger by the same reason it is evident that the reprobation of Esau was not of evill works the subjection of Esau unto his younger brother as lively representing his reprobation as the dominion of Iacob over his elder brother represents his election 5. Predestination is defined by Austin to be Praeparatio gratiae the preparation of grace therefore reprobation which is opposite thereunto must be the not preparation of grace that is God's decree not to give grace like as the opposite is Gods decree to give grace Now God gives grace not according to works For he hath mercy on whom he will And hereupon Austin builds his doctrine of predestination Now by his doctrine predestination is absolute as Gerardus Vossius confesseth in his preface to his history of the heresy of Pelagius How can it be otherwise For if God conferres grace not according to mens works but according to his own purpose and grace How much more did he decree to give it not upon any foresight of works but of his mere pleasure And the Scripture as clearely testifies that as God hath mercy on whom he will so whom he will he hardneth that is of mere pleasure he denieth grace to some as of mere pleasure he grants it unto others And therefore reprobation grounded hereupon must needs be as absolute as predestination grounded upon the other 6. Like as in Scripture phrase Faith is said to be the faith of God's elect election is not said to be of those that are foreseen to to believe So the worshippers of the Beast are said to be those Whose names are not written in the booke of life They that are not written in the booke of life are described to be such that admire and worship the beast And the not writing of mens names in the booke of life doth as significantly represent their reprobation as the writing of mens names in heaven Luc 10. 20. Rev 20. 12 doth represent their election Thus as formerly I gave six reasons to justifie the absolutenesse of reprobation because he pretended the absolutenesse thereof was repugnant to reason so here I have given six more derived out of the word of God to prove that this doctrine is the revealed will of God to stop his empty mouth that clamoureth and only clamoureth that it is no part of God's revealed will And that this doctrine is not only conformable to right reason but by convincing arguments in right reason demonstrable I have already shewed And that all the absurdities this Authour blatters of they prove to be no better then the mere imagination of a vaine thing That which here he discourseth of a reasonable service comes out of it's place it belonged to the former reason in M. Hord's treatise and there I
indurare tum aeterno exitio perdere idque ut in illis divina bonitas et misericordia in istis autem divina potentia et justitia declaretur atque ita in omnibus deus glorificetur Where if you marke it well you shall find he makes no order between the decrees of creation permission of sin liberation and salvation on the one side of induration and damnation on the other side but onely between creation it selfe and permission of sin and liberation it selfe and salvation on the one side and dereliction and damnation on the other side all which he considers as meanes and in the last place notes the end of all to be the patefaction of Gods glory in goodnesse and mercy on the one side and of his power and justice on the other 2. Againe in your first Thesis containing the maine body of your tenet you will have the foresight of the subject or occasion whereupon any thing is decreed absolutely to be wrought alwayes to goe before the decree it selfe as well as the decree of the end goeth before the decree of the meanes The irregularity whereof as touching God though as touching mans decrees I confesse it is right that you speake I will shew as briefly as I can before I answer your reason brought for confirmation of it 1. If the foresight of the subject and occasion goes before the decree of working upon the subject then much more must the decree of making the subject as also of making or permitting the occasion goe before the decree of working upon the subject and upon such an occasion for no subject whereupon God workes can be without Gods making but it is nothing so with man who findes subjects whereupon to worke rather than makes them Now this is a thing impossible For 1. First nothing is first in intention but the end and 't is not possible that the subject or occasion should be the end whereunto God workes upon the subject thus or thus 2. Secondly that which is first in intention is last in execution And therefore if the making of the subject and permitting of the occasion whereupon God meanes to worke were first in intention it should be last in execution that is God should first worke upon the subject before he had made the subject or permitted the occasion whereupon he workes But yet I confesse if you have a reason for what you say unlesse you may receive some satisfactory answer unto that reason of yours it will be a very hard matter to satisfie you Therefore I come to the consideration of your reason which is this The foresight of a thing is nothing but the consideration of it tanquam reipsa certo futurum But whoso will resolve absolutely to work such an effect upon such a definite subject or to make such an use of such a particular event must consider that subject and that event tanquam reipsa futurum for else his decree will be but conditionall To this I answer 1. First according to their opinion that are accounted the most rigid interpreters of predestination 1. Your proposition is most sound 2. As for your assumption which you suppose to be true they suppose to be utterly untrue as directly contrary to the most generall rules touching the order of things in intention and execution And Alphonsus Mendoza takes upon him to prove at large that the supernaturals of Peter and Paul were intended before their naturals 2. The onely reason saving the plausibility of the proposition it selfe to justifie it seems to be this God cannot worke upon a subject unlesse the subject first be and that occasion also whereupon he works therefore God cannot intend to work upon a subject unlesse first he intend to produce that subject and permit at least the occasion whereupon he intends to work As much as to say because I cannot ride to London without a horse therefore I cannot intend to ride to London unlesse first I intend to get me a horse Whence it manifestly followeth that in execution I must first ride to London and afterward get me an horse to that purpose And the confounding of the order of execution with the order of intention seems to be the cause why this proposition of yours seems to be so plausible 2. Now I will answer your proposition according to my own Tenet in ordering Gods decrees which is likely to give you better satisfaction in the way of your own apprehension Now I grant your proposition acknowledging that in this case so it falls out that he must needs consider the subject as reipsa certo futurum But how non tanquam praecedaneum whereto your discourse tends but tanquam conjunctum the reason is because I make the decrees of creation permission of sin and raysing out of sin not subordinata but coordinata conjuncta So I say in like manner God doth joyntly decree to give both grace and glory I do not say God doth decree joyntly to give them but he joyntly decreeth to give both grace and glory And so Austin defines predestination to be praeparationem gratiae gloriae So that in the same moment that he decreeth glory he considers grace not as praecedaneum in intentione but conjunctum So on the other side God doth joyntly decree finall dereliction of some in sin and damnation for sin as Aquinas professeth of reprobation that it includes voluntatem permittendi culpam damnationem inferendi pro culpa so that in the same moment that he decreeth damnation he considereth their finall impenitency non tanquam quiddam antecedaneum but tanquam conjunctum And judge you what force this hath to qualifie the harshnesse of Tenets hereabouts and what disadvantage to our opposites the Arminians who upon the subordination of these decrees cry out upon our Tenets and expose them to obloquie saying that we maintaine that God doth first decree to damne men and then to this purpose he exposeth them to sinne those sinnes for which they are damned And herewith they charge the Authors of Massa corrupta for the object of election and reprobation aswell as the Authors of Massa nondum condita or condita but nondum corrupta And the twenty reasons which Arminius hath given against the Authors of Massa nondum condita he professeth that with little difference they may be accommodated against the Fautors of Massa corrupta All which notwithstanding I have considered and I hope refuted also both the one way against Arminius and the other way against Corvinus in a Digression by it selfe which containes a whole quire of paper one of them but that is in my answer to Corvinus which is not yet perfected Doctor Jackson my ancient friend partly by his traditionary writings that passe in hugger-mugger from hand to hand four pieces whereof as many as I could come by I have answered and partly by his treatise of divine essence withdrawing my studies another away yet an answer to that I hope to smith by Whitsontide
of evill for himselfe But by the way I observe how you mistake the opinion of your opposites as when you say that this decree of manifesting Gods mercy or justice is a decree of working an effect in that subject for this is utterly untrue This were to make the decree of salvation of the one and of damnation of the other to be before the decree of creation And although some such thing may be conceived out of a superficiall apprehension of it as proposed by Beza and Piscator yet both in true account of that opinion in generall and mistaking of it in speciall no such thing is avouched Nay whereas your selfe maintaine that the decree of damnation is before the decree of permission of finall impenitency a point no way congruous to your Tenet about massa corrupta you have often read in my writings that I account the decree of damnation in no moment of time to precede the decree of permission of finall impenitency Then the case of Angells is utterly against this unlesse you maintaine the one to be elected upon the foresight of their obedience the other reprobated upon the foresight of their disobedience which I am perswaded you shall not find any Orthodox Divine in the point of mans election to maintaine 3. Conclusio tertia Gods decree to permit sinne is before his decree to manifest either his mercy in pardoning sinne or his justice in punishing sinne because that is a decree de eventu this a doing of something by occasion of that event Resp 1. To your reason here mentioned I have answered before 2. There is no priority or posteriority in intention but onely in respect of finis and media ad finem 3. It is untrue that the former decree is a decree of an event and the latter of doing something by occasion of this event For what is Gods permission the event you meane If so then Gods working grace may be accounted an event also and so Gods decree of salvation upon his working grace shall follow upon his decree of working grace which is manifestly Arminianisme Is the sinne permitted the event First why should you call it an event is it because you conceive it to fall out besides Gods intention Arminius himselfe professeth the contrary The articles of Ireland professe that God from eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe your selfe acknowledge that Gods decree of permitting sinne is a decree de eventu your selfe acknowledge that God did foresee that man would sinne in case he did permit him to sinne which is as much as to say stice food did intend that sinne should come to passe by his permission which is 〈…〉 and expresse profession of Austin where he saith Non ergo aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo so that whether things come to passe Deo faciente as good things or Deo sinente as evill things still they came to passe Deo volente as Austin professeth Now this sinne is apparently the cause of the damnation of many thousands for as much as many thousand infants are damned onely for sinne originall And therefore like as upon this sin existent God doth not take an occasion onely but a cause of damning many thousands so if the decree of permitting this be presupposed before the decree of damnation you may say as well that God upon the foresight of this sinne doth not onely take occasion but a cause also of decreeing their damnation And this may be applyed to the reprobation not onely of infants but of all that are damned forasmuch as all that are damned are damned for originall sinne onely here is the difference such reprobates as dye in their infancy are damned onely for originall sinne but others are damned not only for originall sinne but for their actuall sinnes also Againe it is manifest that the decree of permitting sinne originall is no more a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning it is a decree of doing something by occasion of that event than Gods decree of permitting all actuall sinnes of his elect from the first to the last is a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning actuall sinnes is a decree of working something by occasion of that event and I cannot but wonder this being againe and againe put to your consideration that you doe not take notice of the equipollency of these whence it manifestly followeth that the decree of pardoning sinnes shall presuppose massam corruptam as well with actuall sinnes as sinnes originall Againe if Gods decree of shewing justice in punishing sinne is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something then Gods decree of damnation for mens actuall sinnes is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something and consequently by what reason the decree of punishing sinne presupposeth the decree of permitting sinne originall by the same reason the decree of damnation shall presuppose the decree of permitting not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes also By the same reason the decree of salvation is but a decree of doing something upon the occasion of faith repentance and good workes For if sinne deserve not to be accounted a cause moving God to resolve to punish a man with damnation but rather an event by occasion where of he resolves to punish with damnation much lesse shall faith repentance and good workes be accounted a cause moving God to decree to save any man but onely an event by occasion whereof God doth decree some mens salvation Yet looke by what reason the decree of punishing with damnation doth presuppose the decree of permitting sinne by occasion of which event punishment by damnation is decreed by the same reason the decree of salvation doth presuppose the decree of giving faith repentance and good workes by occasion of which events salvation is decreed for why should not faith and good workes be accounted an occasion of the decree of salvation as well as sinnes are the occasion of the decree of damnation 4. The fourth conclusion is this Gods decree to produce the person of Peter is before his decree to manifest his mercy in Peter by the reason aforesaid Thes 8. Resp That eighth Thesis aforesaid made no mention of priority in decree or intention but onely of priority in execution by vertue of Gods decree for the words of that eighth Thesis are these God decreeth first to produce that subject and afterwards to worke such an effect thereupon Not that God did first decree to produce the subject but onely that God did decree first to produce the subject manifesting hereby that your intent is onely to reason from the order of execution and therehence to inferre the like order in intention which is the ordinary course of Arminians at this day And you signifie your meaning to be this in that eighth Thesis though in the issue you faile of
it is permitted but as it doth not follow a thing is willed or decreed therefore 't is actually existent a thing is foreknown therefore it is In like manner it doth not follow a thing is permitted therefore it is actually and indeed if Gods meere permission did inferre the existence of a thing upon this ground because permission and the thing permitted are relatives it would hold as well concerning the permission of man as God But 't is manifest that it followeth not upon mans permission that whatsoever he permitteth cometh to passe But it may be objected it is necessary that whatsoever is willed by God doe at some time or other come to passe therefore we may say the same of what is permitted by God He denyeth the consequence and he giveth this reason for his denyall because Gods permission is not so effectuall unto the existence of a thing as his volition and yet he acknowledgeth that this kind of consequence is true in naturall causes but this is not in regard only of permission but from the determination of a naturall cause to worke unlesse it be hindered as concerning rationall and free agents this consequence a thing is permitted to come to passe therefore it doth come to passe is of no force at all The last and principall objection is concerning the permission of sinne in particular without grace sinne cannot be avoyded and the permission of sinne stands in the denyall of grace it is cleare therefore that upon the permission of sinne sinne necessarily ensueth First he answereth this in no-wise followeth from the nature of permission in generall as some Divines have thought but from a peculiar manner of Gods permission standing in a constant denyall of grace without which sinne can be shunned by none Secondly he distinguisheth of a twofold consideration of sinne indefinite or definite and that either in regard of sorts and kinds or else particular actions First he grants that upon the permission of sinne that is the denyall of grace sinne followeth indefinitely and in generall so that as long as God with-holds his grace a man sinnes either in doing what is forbidden or else in doing what is commanded in a wrong way or manner He also sinnes in omitting what is commanded or in abstaining from what is forbidden in an unholy and ungratious way or manner And this he exemplifieth both in the unregenerate and regenerate First whiles God denies to or withholds from an unregenerate man his habituall grace or grace of regeneration whilest he suffereth his spirituall diseases to goe uncured his corruptions unsubdued and unmortified so long he cannot but sinne in all his rationall and deliberate both actions and omissions First all his actions are sinnes of commission either a doing of what is forbidden or a sinfull performance of what is commanded not out of right principles nor for the due and requisite end Secondly all his omissions are sinfull for they are either of what is injoyned or else if they be of what is prohibited they are not sanctified proceeding from the love of God and directed unto the glory of God above all Next as for the regenerate if God deny unto or withhold from them never so little a while his actuall grace the actuall supply and assistance of his spirit they sinne in whatsoever they performe or forbeare And indeed it is no wonder that upon Gods suspending the aide of his actuall grace the regenerate breake out into sinne in whom there is a flesh alwaies lusting against the spirit whose graces are imperfect and corruptions naturall and therefore active upon removall of impediments For sinne in Adam followed upon the sole suspension of actuall assistance to will that good unto which he had an habituall fitnesse and yet in him propension unto good was perfect without any mixture of inclination unto evill Secondly he denyeth that upon the bare permission of sinne sinne followeth definitely either for sorts and kinds or particular actions But here first he implyeth an exception of generall and comprehensive sinnes that either lye at the root of or are concomitant unto every sinne as inordinate selfe-love c. Fortè dici potest ex carentià justitiae originalis sequi necessario ut creatura feratur in amorem sui inordinatè adeo ut quicquid operatur illud faciat propter se non autem propter Deum Secondly he desireth chiefly to be understood concerning the imperate or externall actions of sin and such actions of the will as are of efficacy purposes resolutions c. For upon Gods permission that is not curing or healing not subduing of particular sinfull habits v. g. Covetousnesse luxury there doe necessarily follow such sinfull actions of the will as are stiled usually to be of complacency that doe quoad specificationem for their sort and kind answer such habits to wit velleities desires wouldings and wishings likeings approbations c. A covetous man whilest under the reigne of covetousnesse cannot but love like and covet after things which he judgeth to be gainfull a luxurious voluptuary cannot but love approve and long after things which he knoweth to be pleasant and delightfull unto his senses Omnino videtur Deum non posse impedire ne avarus velit concupiscat ea quae videntur utilia vel libidinosus ea quae titillant tanquam jucunda nam velle concupiscere nihil aliud est quam desiderare at avarus quà avarus necessario talia desiderat concupiscit aliàs non esset avarus libidinosus quà libidinosus talia desiderat aliâs minime dicendus esset libidinosus Lib. 2. part 2. pag. 15. For habits work ad modum naturae necessarily A covetous person as covetous necessarily desireth and coveteth things profitable a lustfull or uncleane person necessarily desireth such objects and actions as are uncleane c. And yet of these too we cannot say that they follow meerely upon his permission secluding his concourse These limitations premised let us returne to consider what he denyeth to wit that upon the bare permission of sinne sinne doth not follow definitely for sorts or kinds or particular actions Sine gratiâ saith he abstineri potest a peccato definite quo ad certam speciem vel etiam in individuo consideratam There is no particular sinne especially of commission but may be abstained from without grace And therefore upon the meere and bare denyall or with-holding of grace this or that particular sinne doth not follow For first those that are destitute of habituall grace the grace of regeneration may yet be free from diverse particular sinfull habits v. g. Covetousnesse Luxury c. Secondly in those that have such particular sinfull habits those habits are not actuated especially by outward actions upon Gods bare and single permission his sole denyall of grace This he proves by reason and Scripture First by reason because the subject of an actuall sinne of commission is a naturall act and unto the performance of a naturall
to passe then all things possible to be or at least ten thousand things more than ever shall be must be yea and this necessarily IEANES IF you supply the propositions that are wanting and make this a compleate Syllogisme it will be in secundo modo Syllogismi connexi qui tollit consequens ut tollat antecedens And then your conclusion if your Syllogisme be true for forme will be Therefore whatsoever God hath decreed or intendeth to permit to come to passe in any case upon any termes or any supposition whatsoever shall not by vertue of such an intention or decree necessarily come to passe And then if in your Syllogisme there be not committed that fallacy which is called Ignoratio elenchi never Syllogisme framed in this world was sicke of this disease for the conclusion you inferre is no-wise opposite unto any thing in D. Twisse Can you dare you say that D. Twisse any where affirmeth that whatsoever God hath decreed or intendeth to permit to come to passe in any case upon any termes or any supposition whatsoever shall by vertue of such an intention or decree necessarily come to passe Consult all his bookes that are extant whether in Latine or English and if you can prove any such passage to be in them either in expresse termes or by just consequence I will acknowledge that I have wronged you in as shamefull and publicke a manner as you will prescribe and if you cannot make good that D. Twisse hath said any such thing it will be very agreeable unto justice that you make a retraction of your mistake The palpable grossenesse of the injury that you doe D. Twisse will the better appeare if you compare the conclusion which you father upon him with the example you bring a little after God intendeth and hath decreed to permit that fire shall burne what combustible matter soever it shall take hold off or that shall be cast into it that one sparke of it falling into a barrell of dry Gun-powder should suddainly fire it but it doth not follow from hence that therefore every thing that is combustible in the World shall be burnt with fire or that every barrell of dryed Gun-powder shall be blown up with sparkes of fire falling into them Here you make as if the permissive decree D. Twisse speakes of were concerning Gods permission of things to come to passe not absolutely but conditionally in such a case upon such termes upon such a supposition and as if he affirmed that whatsoever God hath decreed to permit to come to passe only conditionally should by vertue of such a decree come to passe absolutely and necessarily This is one of the absurdest assertions that ever dropt from the pen of a rationall man and in D. Twisse there is nothing sounding like it you doe very ill therefore that I say no more to asperse him with it Nay D. Twisse is so farre from making a bare permissive * conditionall decree to be illative of the absolute existence of whatsoever God hath decreed to permit to come to passe conditionally as that he denyeth any such inference to be made from an effective conditionall decree Though it were very strange saith he against Cotton pag. 97. that any thing should not be accomplished which God doth will absolutely yet surely it is nothing strange that that should not be accomplished which God doth will to come to passe only upon a condition for the condition failing there is no reason why we should expect the accomplishment thereof How often doth he tell you that for God to decree the salvation of all men only conditionally in case they believe and repent is no more to decree their salvation than their damnation for as he hath purposed salvation to men upon condition of faith and repentance so on the other side it is as undoubtedly true that God hath ordained that whosoever coming to ripe yeares shall not believe and repent shall be damned and as to decree the salvation of all men only conditionally is no more to decree their salvation than their damnation so to decree to permit a thing to come to passe only conditionally in such a case upon such termes upon such a supposition is no more to decree the permission of it than the not permission of it to come to passe what is said of conditionall propositions is true of conditionall purposes both effective and permissive Nihil ponunt in esse sc absolute simpliciter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To goe one step farther D. Twisse is very unlikely to conclude from Gods decree barely to permit a thing to come to passe conditionally in such a case upon such termes or upon such a supposition that therefore the thing so decreed shall absolutely come to passe because if we speake of positive things he is clearely and constantly of the opinion that we cannot say truly that they shall come to passe so much as conditionally in such a case upon such termes c. Unlesse God decree not barely to permit but to worke and effect the thing conditionated upon supposall of such conditions De Scientià Medià p. 430. Ad eundem modum concedimus omnem enunciationem conditionatam de futuris conditionatis esse necessariam modo Deus decreverit posità tali conditione rem ipsam conditionatam effectam dare quod nisi ponamus Deum decrevisse prorsus praeter omnem Analogiam disserit Suarez dum prophetiarum comminantium promittentium eandem rationem esse vult atque propositionum de futuris contingentibus conditionatarum qualiumcunque quas etiam prophetias appellat Suarez Now if he will not allow us to make any inference of the conditionall futurition of positive things from a decree that is barely permissive and conditionall it would be very strange if he himselfe should make such a permissive conditionall decree to be illative of the absolute futurition of whatsoever is so decreed And thus have I done with your conclusion which I affirme not to be opposite unto any proposition in D. Twisse his Bookes and I hope you will pardon me if I presume so farre as to challenge you to prove the contrary In the next place I shall make bold to question the truth of the consequence of your Major proposition which is this If whatsoever God hath decreed or intendeth to permit to come to passe in any case upon any termes or any supposition whatsoever should by vertue of such an intention or deeree necessarily come to passe then all things possible to be c. must be yea and this necessarily And the reason why I question it is because I much doubt whether God hath decreed or intendeth to permit to come to passe conditionally in some case upon some termes or upon some supposition or other all things whatsoever that are possible all things I say that are possible whether unto all naturall or necessary or else all free and rationall agents that is not only such as doe exist
Answerably unto which fire cannot be said to be permitted to fire or blow up such a barrell of Gunpowder between which and it there is such a distance M r GOODWIN OR if it be said that God hath decreed that such a sparke or coale shall fall into the said barrell of Gunpowder now is not the decree barely permissive but operative and assertive and such which ingageth the decreer to interpose effectually for the bringing of the thing decreed to passe But such decrees as this in matters of that nature we deny to be in God IEANES IF By matters of that nature you meane in such contingent things as the falling of a Sparke or Coale into a Barrell of Gunpowder why Doctor Twisse hath an argument which he takes to be unanswerable clearly evincing that whatsoever thing comes to passe that is good with a transcendentall goodnesse or Metaphysicall God hath decreed it by an operative or effective decree You have it in his examination of M. Cottons Treatise c. p. 68 69. As also in his Consideration of that Scoffing Pamphlet of Tilenus viz. the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to the practise p. 18 19. Nay I say more saith he that every thing which cometh to passe in the revolution of times was decreed by God which I proove by such an argument for answer whereunto I challeng the whole nations of both Arminans and Iesuites It cannot be denied but God foresaw from everlasting whatsoever in time should come to passe therefore every thing was future from everlasting otherwise God could not foresee it as future Now let us soberly enquire how these things which we call future came to be future being in their own nature meerely possible and indifferent as well not at all to be future as to be future Of this transmigration of things out of the condition of things meerely possible such as they were of themselves into the condition of things future there must needs be some outward cause Now I demand what was the cause of this transmigration And seeing nothing without the nature of God could be the cause hereof for this transmigration was from everlasting but nothing without God was everlasting therefore something within the nature of God must be found fit to be the cause hereof And what may that be Not the knowledge of God for that rather presupposeth things future and so knowable in the kind of things future then makes them future therefore it remaines that the meere decree and will of God is that which makes them future If to shift off this it be said that the essence of God is the cause hereof I farther demand whether the essence of God be the cause hereof as working necessarily or as working freely If as working necessarily then the most contingent things became future by necessity of the Divine nature and consequently he produceth whatsoever he produceth by necessity of nature which is Atheisticall therefore it remaines that the Essence of God hath made them future by working freely and consequently the meere will and decree of God is the cause of the futurition of all things He speakes indeed of Gods will and decree indefinitely but that thereunder he comprehends an operative or effective decree is undeniable But the force of this reason you may think easily to evade by your deniall of Gods fore-knowledge your reasons for which denyall I shall in the next place proceed to examine Mr GOODWIN pag. 29. cap. 3. Sect. 2. THat Prescience or fore-knowledge are not formally or properly in God is the constant assertion both of ancient and moderne Divinity The learned Assertours of the Protestant cause are at perfect agreement with their Adversaries the Schoolemen and Papists in this Nor is it any wonder at all that there should be peace and a concurrence of Judgement about such a poynt as this even between those who have many Irons of contention otherwise in the fire considering how obvious and neere at hand the truth herein is For 1. If foreknowledge were Properly and formally in God then might Predestination Election Reprobation and many other things be properly and formally in him also in as much as these are in the letter and propriety of them as competible unto him as foreknowledge Nor can there be any reason given for a difference But unpossible it is that there should be any Plurality of things whatsoever in their distinct and proper natures and formalities in God the infinite simplicity of his nature and being with open mouth gainsaying it 2 ly If foreknowledge were properly or formally in God there should be somewhat in him corruptible or changeable For that which is supposed to be such a fore-knowledge in him to day by the morrow suppose the thing or event fore-known should in the interim actually come to passe must needs cease and be changed in as much as there can be no foreknowledge of things that are present the adequate and appropriate object of this knowledge in the Propriety of it being res futura somewhat that is to come Thirdly and lastly there is nothing in the Creature univocally and formally the same with any thing which is in God The reason is because then there must either be somewhat finite in God or somewhat infinite in the Creature both which are unpossible But if Praescience or fore-knowledge being properly and formally in the Creature should be properly and formally also in God there should be somewhat in the Creature univocally and formally the same with somewhat which is in God Therefore certainly there is no fore-knowledge properly so called in God IEANES DIverse Heathen Philosophers I have found censured for denying of Gods Prescience or foreknowledge as Cicero by Austin lib. 5. De Civ Dei cap. 9. Seneca by Aureolus 1. distin 38. Aristotle by Vasquez and others But that Christian Divines either ancient or moderne unlesse you will appropriate that name unto Socinians are so unanimous in impugning of Gods foreknowledge is great newes unto me and not only unto me but unto all others I believe that have read any thing in either ancient or Moderne Divinity Hierome in his third book Adversus Pelagianos teacheth as Franciscus Amicus informes me that he who takes away Prescience from God takes away the Godhead Eum qui a Deo praescientiam tollit divinitatem tollere As for Austin whom you quote in the Margent against this Prescience of God let any one read that place but now quoted Lib. 5. De Civ Dei cap. 9. and he must needs confesse that he is a zealous Assertor of Gods foreknowledge against Cicero who opposeth it in favour of the liberty of mans will And so saith Austin Dum vult facere homines liberos facit sacrilegos multò sunt autem tolerabiliores saith he qui vel sydera fata constituunt quam iste qui tollit praescientiam futurorum Nam consiteri esse Deum negare praescium futurorum apertissima insania est
in God as the distinction of voluntas signi and beneplaciti as applyed in the question in hand doth suppose It is unpossible that I should inwardly and seriously will or desire the death of my Child and yet at the same time seriously also will and injoyne the Physitian to doe the best to recover him IEANES D. Twisse is not singular herein diverse great Schoolemen Aquinas Durand Cajetan Bannes Gregory de Valentia and many others say the same of not only Gods command but all other signes of the will of his purpose or good pleasure The words of some few of them shall for the satisfaction of the reader be inserted in the Margent and the rather because you in the 16 Section of this Chapter tell us that the Schoolemen were the first coyners of this distinction of Gods will in Voluntatem signi voluntatem beneplaciti and how their interpretation thereof holds intelligence as you speake with that sense of D. Twisse which you here impugne the Reader may see Vindic. Lib. 1. pag. 173 174. Some of them professe in terminis that the will of signe or signification is called the will of God only improperly and metaphorically by way of similitude or proportion and therefore the distribution of Gods will into a will of signe and will of purpose or good pleasure is not reall but only verball divisio vocis from whom they doe not dissent who say that 't is divisio Analogi in analogata For as Scheibler a Lutheran and of your opinion for the maine in these controversies observeth that they are to be understood of such an analogy which is by extrinsecall reference and denomination Intelligunt enim eam analogiam quae est per extrinsecam habitudinem denominationem Voluntas enim signi vocatur voluntas extrinseca denominatione in quantum scilicet significat beneplacitum divinum quod absolute est voluntas Dei ad eum modum quo multa dicuntur sana per habitudinem ad santitatem animalis quae primo talis est Metaph. lib. 2. cap. 3. tit 15. art 4. punct 2. n. 535. For the will of signe is called will by extrinsecall denomination as it signifieth Gods good pleasure or decree which absolutely is the will of God after the same manner that many things are said to be healthy or wholsome in regard of reference unto the health of a sensitive creature unto whom health is in the first place properly and intrinsecally attributed Unto these suffrages of the Schoolemen I shall adde reasons drawn from three attributes of Gods will properly so called It is internall eternall irresistible and Gods precept or injunction is externall temporary and resistible 1. Gods will properly so called is internall in God really undistinguished from his Essence whereas Gods precepts or injunctions are externall without him really distinguished from him 2. The proper will of God was from eternall the commands of God are given in time From the Eternity of Gods will I shall also draw this following Argument The will of God properly so called is uncapable of interruption reiteration and multiplication for in eternity there is a most absolute and perfect unity and indivisibility without any succession of parts but now the Commands of God may be very often reiterated and multiplied precept upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line upon line Esay 28. 10. Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thy children together Math. 23. 37. 3. The will of God properly so called is irresistible Who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19. Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven and in earth in the Sea and all deepe places Psal 135. 6. The Counsell of the Lord must stand and cannot be withstood By all the powers of the World and darknesse my counsell saith the Lord shall stand and I will doe all my pleasure Esay 46. 10. But now Gods precepts and prohibitions are every day violated broken and resisted by wicked men Unto these reasons I might adde your own confession I confesse say you that no signification whatsoever whether of what a man willeth or decreeth to be done or of what is the duty of another to doe can properly be said to be the will of the signifier But now I subjoyne Gods precept or injunction is only a signe of his will and therefore however it be usually termed in Scripture the will of God Mat. 6. 10. Mat. 7. 21. Rom. 12. 2. 1 Thess 4. 3. It is to be understood only improperly and Tropically and that first Metaphorically 2. Metonymically First Metaphorically and by an Anthropâ—pathy when God commands a thing he carryeth himselfe as men doe when they purpose will desire and determine that such a thing should come to passe for amongst men usually their commands are manifestations and declarations of their purposes and desires I say usually because sometimes superiors injoyne some things to inferiors only for tryall and upon their readinesse to obey recall and revoke such commands How Gods commandements and other signes of his will are the will of God Metaphorically Aquinas illustrates in the place but now quoted seeing passions are ascribed unto God only Metaphorically hence the signes of such passions in us when ascribed unto God are called by the names of the passions themselves Punishment is with us a signe of Anger and therefore Gods punishments are termed his wrath or anger so our commands are signes usually of our wills of our desires and intentions and therefore the commands of God are termed in Scripture the will of God But I think with D. Ames that the commandements of God are termed the will of God not only Metaphorically but also Metonymically because they are signes of a proper will of God Media illa saith Ames per quae voluntas ista râ—â—elatur recte vocantur voluntas signi non tantum Metaphorice quia solent inter homines indicare quid velint sed etiam Metonymice quia sunt vel effecta vel adjuncta propriam Dei voluntatem ex parte indicantia Medul lib. 1. c. 7. 53. And this also is observed by D. Twisse in his consideration of the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort and Arles reduced to the practice p. 54. Now we say even Gods commandement notes the will of God also in proper speech to wit what shall be our duty to doe for undoubtedly whatsoever God commands us it is his will in proper speech that it shall be our duty to doe it However then it is the sence of D. Twisse that the commandement of God cannot properly be said to be his will yet he doth not deny that it signifieth or betokeneth the will of God properly so called in which regard it is termed the revealed will of God because it revealeth Gods will all the Question is what will of God it revealeth or signifieth D. Twisse you see roundly expresseth himselfe that it signifieth or revealeth Gods will of obligation what he will oblige
pertinent to the businesse in hand are not called properly acts of their wills and this I shall not dictate but confirme by these three following arguments First every act of the will properly so called is voluntary intrinsecally and of it selfe but now these imperate acts of the will are voluntary only extrinsecally by denomination from an act of the will moveing stirring up and applying the power or faculty from which they proceed unto operation 2. Those acts which proceed from other faculties distinguished really from the will are not properly acts of the will or acts of willing as you phrase it but these imperate acts of the will proceed from other faculties really distinguished from the will and therefore cannot properly be said to be acts of the will and of these faculties too 3. The acts of the will are not properly objects of acts of the will The act of willing is not properly a thing willed a decree is not decreed Actus saith Suarez qui per seipsum est intrinsece voluntarius non comparatur ut proprium objectum vel effectus ad illum actum quo est voluntarius quia est voluntarius seipso non est proprie objectum vel effectus sui ipsius habet ergo aliud objectum in quod directe tendat est effectus potentiae a qua elicitur solum per quandam virtualem reflectionem quam in se includit est voluntarius unde dici solet volitus per modum actus non per modum objecti Met. Disp 19. Sect. 5. n. 17. But these imperate actions of the will are properly objects of the will and things willed and therefore cannot in strictnesse and propriety of speech be said to be acts of the will M. GOODWIN THerefore if the precept or preceptive will of God be not properly his will neither can any other will of his or any other act of his will be properly such IEANES I Have searched for the premises out of which you inferre this conclusion and I must needs professe unto you that I can find none it is possible the fault may be in the dulnesse of my understanding and you shall find me willing and ready to confesse as much if you will put your argument into Moode and Figure for me and conclude this proposition out of any thing you have delivered in the former part of this Section Mr GOODWIN IF so then that will of God or act of will in God whereby he willeth or injoyneth faith and repentance and consequently salvation unto all men is as properly his will as that whereby he willeth the salvation of any man IEANES FIrst untill you can find a Major and Minor unto your former conclusion this which is inferr'd therehence is presumed and not proved 2. You here make Willeth and Injoyneth all one concerning the unreasonablenesse of which I have spoken already 3. I wonder what you meane in talking of an act of will in God whereby he injoyneth faith and repentance The injunction or precept of faith and repentance is an act without God not in him and belongs unto his will not formally but effectively 4. Your mentioning of an act of will in God hath occasioned mee to thinke of some thing which for clearing of mine own meaning and avoyding of mistakes I shall communicate unto the Reader And it is carefully to put a distinction betwixt these two expressions To be properly the will of God and To be properly an act of the will of God That Gods decrees are properly the will of God may be demonstrated out of most Schoolemen that they are properly acts of Gods will I deny and that for two reasons 1. If Gods decrees were properly acts of his will then his will were properly a power But his will is not properly a power for will is ascribed unto God not as a power distinct from the act but as an act not elicite but subsisting And here I shall give you the words and reasons of Suarez then whom there are few Moderne Schoolemen more rationall He having proved that the will is not in God per modum potentiae secundum rem sed per modum actus ultimi puri he propounds the doubt secundum rationem modum concipiendi nostrum wherein heare his resolution In hoc eodem modo loquendum est quo de intellectu scientià locuti sumus quod scilicet ex parte rei conceptae non potest concipi potentia volendi in Deo quia non potest concipi potentia agendi vel recipiendi ad intra Nec fingi potest quod sit potentia ad agendum recipiendum non secundum rem sed secundum rationem quia loquendo ex parte rei conceptae involvitur repugnantia in his terminis nam agere secundum rationem non est agere sed fingere actionem Ex parte autem modi concipiendi nostri concipimus in Deo aliquid ad eum modum quo in creaturis concipimus potentiam volendi scilicet virtutem amandi se ut sic quam praescindimus ab actuali amore sicut de actu primo secundo in scientia diximus But here I desire to be understood as Franciscus Amicus explicates himselfe touching this particular Curs Theol. Tom. 1. Disp 14. Sect. 1. Dupliciter considerari potest potentia vitalis uno modo ut dicit distinctionem ab actu secundo ut importat positivam perfectionem percipiendi aut tendendi ad objectum primo modo involvit imperfectionem Deo repugnantem secundo modo perfectionem Deo convenientem Quare concedo in Deo esse voluntatem secundum positivum conceptum potentiae Nego autem esse potentiam secundum imperfectionem distinctionis ab actu secundo quam potentia ut sic per se importat The power of willing may be considered two manner of waies First as it implyeth distinction from its act and so it involveth imperfection repugnant unto God Secondly as it importeth a positive perfection of tendency towards its object or thing willed and so it may be attributed unto God 2. If Gods decrees were properly acts of Gods will then they should be properly Elicite acts but they are not properly elicite acts but subsisting â—nunciantur fateor saith our Author tanquam actus a Deo eliciti sic dici possunt per anthropopathiam quemadmodum passiones humanae attribuuntur Deo At eruditi probe norunt omnia decreta Dei esse unicum duntaxat actum volendi in Deo qui quidem actus volendi non differt realiter ab ipsa voluntate Dei quae quidem voluntas Dei non differt realiter ab ipso Deo qui est actus simplicissimus Vind. lib. 2. p. 2. p. 101. But I returne from this digression unto M. Goodwin M. GOODWIN THerefore if there be any secret or revealed will of God whereby he willeth the destruction of any man at the same time when he willeth the salvation of all men be it with what kind of will soever
Ioh. 17. 19. and therefore though these words were part of a most solemne addressement unto God yet were they not put up by him in the capacity and according to the duty and interest of a Mediator for his elect Twisse Vindic. l. 1. p. 2. pag. 188. And this is enough to satisfy you that you are out in passing your censure upon D. Twisse his notion on this place that it is said not proved which I am perswaded you would have forborne if you had so throughly perused him as it was fit you should before you had in publike thus censured him Let us see in the next place with what strength of Argument you oppose his exposition M. GOODWIN NOr indeed is this probable for very unlikely it is that Christ being now in a full investiture of his great office of Mediator should wave his interest in heaven by meanes hereof in his addressements unto God for men and pray only in the capacity and according to the interest and duty of a private man this would argue that he prayed not for them with his whole heart nor with an effectuallnesse of desire to obtaine what he prayed for IEANES FIrst you cannot deny but that in these words of Christ Father if it be possible or if it be thy will let this cup passe from me Christ prayed not as a Mediator for his elect for so he was ingaged to drinke off this Cup but as a man naturally declining and abhorring death and the ignominy of the Crosse as they are in themselves evill and yet all your arguments mutatis mutandis with due change may be applied unto this interpretation as well as unto D. Twisse his notion as you call it upon Luke 23. 34. Secondly in answer unto your objections we may make use of a distinction of prayer brought by Suarez in tertiam partem Sum. Aquin. q. 21. Art 4. Prayer is nothing else but an unfolding of the will unto God Now in Christs manhood there was a twofold will one absolute and effectuall another conditionall and uneffectuall which may otherwise be termed a velleity a will of simple complacency a will of a thing only secundum quid in some particular respect according to some particular consideration of such a will of his we read Mar. 7. 24. He entred into an house and would have no man know it but he could not be hid Answerable unto these two acts of the will in Christ there may be attributed unto Christ two sorts or kinds of prayer one proceeding from an absolute and effectuall will and this was alwaies heard the other from a conditionall and uneffectuall will and this was not alwaies heard such was his prayer in his agony let this cup passe from me and of this sort or kind of prayer is that passage Psal 22. 2. In reference unto Christ understood O my God I cry in the day time but thou hearest not and in the night season and am not silent Now to apply this distinction Christ could not pray as a private man for those of his persecutors for whom he did not pray as a Mediator if we speake of that kind of Prayer which cometh from an absolute and effectuall will which is styled by Gregory de Valentia Voluntas rationis undequaque deliberatae because it proceedeth upon regard had to all circumstances And the reason is because with this kind of Prayer he never prayed for any thing but what he knew would be granted for he never absolutely and effectually willed any thing but what was agreeable unto Gods absolute will the will of his decree or good pleasure and this is all that your arguments can prove But yet notwithstanding this he might pray taking prayer for a representation of a conditionall or uneffectuall will for the pardon of even those of his persecutors who he knew should be condemned and for whom therefore he prayed not as Mediator or more plainly he might expresse a velleity a gracious mercifull and charitable desire to have all his crucifyers pardoned so as it were not contrary unto Gods decree unto which he did submit and in which he did acquiesce as he did in his prayer for the removall of his Passion not my will but thy will be done An answer very like unto if not coincident with this may be easily gathered out of D. Twisse and it is that Christ as a private man prayed for the pardon of all his persecutors taking prayer for an expression of Christs antecedent will not as prayer is a representation of his consequent will An Antecedent will as Alvarez explaines it is the willing of a thing considered absolutely as it is in it selfe abstracting from all other considerations of it A consequent will is the willing of a thing considered with all circumstances wherewith it is clothed Thus a Merchant willeth the preservation of his wares with an antecedent will as the preservation of his wares is considered in it selfe but he doth not will it with a consequent will as it is considered with this circumstance as 't is accompanied with hazard and danger of his life Thus also a judge with an antecedent will willes the life of a Prisoner because his life is in it selfe a thing good and desireable but he doth not will it with a consequent will as he is guilty of Murther incest or any the like capitall crime Now D. Twisse though he reject the application of this distinction to God with whose simplicity and infinite knowledge severall successive considerations of one and the same thing are utterly incompetible yet he denyeth not but it may have place in the manhood of Christ Ratione diversarum considerationum non nego saith he distinctionem istam competere posse in hominem quippe cui variae considerationes occurrere possunt invicem succedentes sic Christus naturali sui conservandi desiderio ferebatur cum a patre peteret ut calix transiret at consideratâ voluntate decreto patris de Calice isto ad bibendum ipsi propinato eidem se submittere consultum duxit This distinction in regard of diverse considerations of one and the same thing may be ascribed unto man in whom are found severall considerations of the same thing succeeding one another So Christ as man out of a naturall desire of selfe-preservation prayed that the cup of his passion might passe from him but the will or decree the command of his Father his owne office and mans salvation being considered he submitted himselfe to the drinking up of this cup even to the very dreggs neverthelesse not my will but thy will be done Luk. 22. 42. If this cup may not passe away from me except I drinke it thy will be done Mat. 26. 42. He did not will his passion with an Antecedent will but he willed it you see with a Consequent will Joh. 4. 34. And so he prayed against it as a prayer is a proposall of an Antecedent not consequent will Now that Doctor Twisse resembles